RICHMOND, Va. – In response to the violent police deployment and mass arrests of student, staff, and faculty protestors on multiple Virginia campuses, ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Mary Bauer released the following statement:
“Police violence should never be a tool to crush dissent. We deeply disapprove of university leaders’ decisions to deploy state police and nonsensical disciplinary charges against student demonstrators, and we are outraged to see Virginia State Police use chemical weaponry, riot gear and physical aggression not once but on multiple campuses against students engaged in protest—a long-standing American tradition rooted in the First Amendment.
“In response to the horrifying escalations we’ve seen in recent weeks from university administrations across the Commonwealth, we are investigating possible abuses of students’ civil rights and civil liberties, including but not limited to the following:
“History echoes. No commemoration of the fatal shooting of students at Kent State could be more shocking than for Virginia police to hold defenseless students at gunpoint on the very same day on another college campus more than half a century later. Virginians deserve answers, and although we generally do not provide criminal defense representation, we reiterate our call to all students and community members who believe their civil rights and civil liberties were violated to submit an intake at www.acluva.org/get-help.”
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