Pictured Above: Students stood socially distanced outside the Marshall Student Center with signs promoting free speech on university campuses.
Courtesy of Taylor Cook
By Sophie Ojdanic and Trevor Martindale
A student-organized demonstration promoting free speech on college campuses in front of USF Tampa’s Marshall Student Center (MSC) was shut down with multiple arrests on Feb. 9.
Taylor Cook said as she walked up to where the demonstration would take place, she had the feeling the event would be shut down.
“We got there and we started (demonstrating),” Cook said. “Walking up, we saw this big group (of administrators) in a circle… maybe five or six of them just standing in a huddle. It was very odd.”
Cook was among five students arrested outside the MSC.
The students were charged with trespassing for violating COVID-19 guidelines and told to disperse five times, according to university police.
“They’ve never been so aggressive with us,” Cook said.
The group, Cook said, chanted that protest was not a crime.
“(After the chant) instead of giving us the two to three minutes, they started walking towards us.”
Hailey Ostwalt, a USF St. Petersburg graduate, is now pursuing a second bachelor’s degree in economics. Ostwalt said she attempted to get information about the officers.
“A (Party for Socialism and Liberation) member was grabbed so I started following them and asked for the police (officer’s) name and badge number, which they’re legally required to give me, but didn’t,” Ostwalt said. “Then the police came behind me and arrested me instead of just telling me their name.”
Cook said she was handcuffed “in a very hot car” for an hour.
“My cop would sometimes wear his mask,” Cook said, but added that he would take it down occasionally.
Ostwalt said that only one of the four officers who dealt with her was wearing a mask.
Cook’s own mask fell during her arrest.
“When they arrested me, my mask had fallen down and they didn’t let me (pull) it up or anything,” Cook said.
Ostwalt said another event was occurring at the time of their arrest.
“As we were being taken to the car, there was this huge yoga event going on that was like 40 people, unmasked, doing yoga in the courtyard by the MSC,” Ostwalt said. “That seemed pretty organized to me.”
The group, from an unofficial club called Defend Free Speech at USF, was “protesting state legislation that proposes increased penalties for protestors who block traffic or participate in ‘disorderly assemblies,’ ” according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Student Simon Rowe, along with Elizabeth Kramer and Jordana Cumming, who are not students, were arrested with Cook and Ostwalt.
University police records say that “Cook was informed on February 8 that a publicized rally is considered an in-person event … is not allowed in the current phase of the USF COVID-19 reopening plan.
“In total, the group received five warnings to discontinue the event. The arrested individuals were issued a Notice to Appear and released on their own recognizance. Under Phase II of the USF COVID-19 reopening plan, all planned events must be held virtually unless otherwise approved by USF COVID-19 Task Force.”
Cook acknowledged that the event “definitely was publicized” on the group’s Instagram and on the Students for a Democratic Society’s Instagram story.
Cook told the Times that other student groups, like Students for a Democratic Society, Students for Justice in Palestine and Save USF, were threatened with suspension and told they would be trespassed on other occasions.
“We were following university guidelines, six feet apart, socially distanced; everyone was wearing masks, but since we were protesting USF and their hypocrisies is the difference between the homophobic and misogynistic preachers or Kaitlin Bennett, who is also very homphobic and transphobic,” Cook said in an interview with The Crow’s Nest.
Bennett, a controversial figure on social media and gun rights activist, visited the campus in the fall, rousing crowds of people to gather. The majority of students were criticizing Bennett’s character and political views.
Bennett was not asked to leave the campus. Videos by The Oracle showed campus police creating barricades to separate Bennett from the crowd.
In an interview with the Times, Cook called it “clear hypocrisy.”
USF spokesman Adam Freeman said Bennett’s on-campus appearance “did not meet the university’s definition of an event.”
“Even during COVID-19, USF’s campuses are open to the public and the university continues to value the right to free speech,” Freeman said.
Cook said the university was suppressing progressive voices.
“(USF doesn’t) want us to talk about the budget cuts, they don’t want us to talk about the hypocrisy with progressive voices,” Cook said. “… If they really cared (about mitigating the spread of COVID(-19), they wouldn’t have in-person classes, they wouldn’t allow people to live in the dorms, they would enforce COVID(-19) guidelines in the dorm areas and they wouldn’t have football games or allow people to attend football games.”
Ostwalt said the groups involved have organized phone banking events to persuade the university to drop charges or address the parties’ concerns.
“According to the assistant at (President Steve Currall’s office), hundreds of people have been calling in to speak to the president and no one has gotten a response,” Ostwalt said. “SDS and PSL collectively have initiated a call-in event where from 9 to 5 everyone calls into the president’s office and we have a little sample script (to say) ‘Hey, I am a USF student, and I want to demand that the charges be dropped for the five students that were arrested.’
“We are planning to continue that … until they’re dropped or they make a statement.”
According to the university police’s public information representative, Audrey Clarke, “the file is currently active with the State Attorney’s Office which will decide the outcome.”
