Iowa Board of Regents considers allowing removal of disruptive protesters from meetings

Among 20 pages of policy changes the Board of Regents will consider making next week is one giving the board president power to remove someone from a meeting if that person “engages in behavior that materially interferes with the board’s ability to conduct the meeting.”

The proposed policy clarification expands existing board policy language that states, more generally, “Disruptive behavior will not be tolerated” and those who disrupt will be removed.

The current policy already notes audience members — while allowed to bring signs and placards — might be asked to remove their signs if they’re disruptive.

“This was already in board policy, and the proposed language just adds to and clarifies it,” board spokesman Josh Lehman said.

“We want to have meetings that allow people to hear and observe the proceedings as we conduct the important business of the universities and special schools.”

Student protest

The proposed update comes 19 months after student protesters in February 2020 crowded the board’s office in Urbandale — where regents were holding one of their regular meetings — and effectively shut it down with nonstop chanting, singing, shouting and sharing of personal stories.

The protesters, among other things, demanded a tuition freeze and spent more than an hour hammering home that point and others before the board eventually ended its meeting early and went home.

During the protest, no regent responded directly to any of the dozens of students.

“Enough is enough,” one student shouted at the time. “We call on the Board of Regents to reverse the multiyear tuition model and institute a tuition freeze at the University of Iowa and Iowa State University.”

None of the university presidents, also at the meeting that day, said anything during the protest — and all three left the room at various times. Board leadership told reporters they’re bound by state law to discuss only items listed on their publicly released agenda or risk violating open meetings laws.

And the issues central to the student demands were not on the day’s meeting agenda.

“I offered to them to sit down and figure out how we can get something worked out where there can be a dialogue, back and forth,” Board of Regents Executive Director Mark Braun told The Gazette after the board adjourned that day. “They demanded that the board respond today.”

Braun also noted the board had held a public comment period and said the protesters “did not avail themselves of that opportunity.”

Public comment

That was the last meeting the board held in person before the pandemic forced everything online. The board resumed in-person meetings over the summer.

Per regent policy, the board doesn’t offer public comment during virtual, telephonic or special meetings — meaning the public went more than a year without the opportunity to bring their concerns to the board in a public setting.

No members of the public signed up to speak during the board’s first in-person meetings in June and July — while most students were on break. A “few” have requested to speak during the board meeting in Ames next week, Lehman said.

Although the board had not planned to freeze tuition last fall — like protesters demanded — it ended up doing so due to the pandemic. This fall the board resumed its planned stepped rate increases.

Last year wasn’t the first time protesters have rallied at board meetings and interrupted proceedings. Dozens did so in 2015 when the board went against popular opinion by hiring Bruce Harreld as the 21st UI president.

Lehman didn’t directly answer The Gazette’s question about whether this week’s proposed policy clarification is related to the February 2020 meeting that ended early.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com