Goldfarb Library will begin gathering student input on new norms for how its space is used in the fall, according to Vice Provost, Chief Information Officer and University Librarian John Unsworth. The norms will help establish “a shared community sense of what’s permissible where and when,” according to Unsworth in an email to the Justice.

The new norms are part of the library’s response to a student demonstration on May 1, during which University librarians called Brandeis police, which generated backlash from participating students.

Over the summer, University librarians will complete training on how to respond to civil disobedience, as well as training on “some of the issues that were behind the students’ reaction to the situation which I think have to do with race and with the issues that are going on in the larger context of the nation right now,” according to Unsworth in an interview with the Justice. In the fall, Goldfarb will also resume student exhibitions about social justice and “brown-bag lunch” roundtable discussions on a range of topics, including social justice, according to Leah Hoffman M.A. ’16. Hoffman, who was one of the organizers of the student demonstration, noted that the library held brown-bag lunches in the spring, but they were poorly attended, which she hopes will not be the case with the upcoming events. 

The demonstration was held in front of the library’s circulation desk, and was attended by between 20 and 30 students with 10 to 15 more joining partway through the event, according to Hoffman. In an interview with the Justice, she stated that the demonstration was “about the marginalization of students and the duality that students have to operate in. So talking specifically about students who may be part of marginalized groups and the stress that they have during finals.” 

Hoffman said she began planning the demonstration three days before the May 1 action, alongside Sarah Gray Ph.D ’18 and Maya Cooper ’15. According to Hoffman, the demonstration was only “in a way” a direct reaction to the Baltimore protests in response to the violent arrest of Freddie Gray, which began on April 18. 

Hoffman said that Gray’s arrest and subsequent death “was very well something that we didn’t really anticipate,” but added that “our community, the African-American community was certainly under duress and in some serious pain again during finals, which happened last semester too. I would be remiss to say that it wasn’t in re-sponse, so it definitely was, but I think it also was in response to ‘this is finals, and this is what we are continuing to have to deal with.’”

According to Hoffman, “We didn’t even think to notify the library about our action, it never came up as a thought from the three planners.” Hoffman said she wanted to make the event “a pop-up event. We wanted this to be understood as an opportunity and a voice for our community.” 

The students stood in a circle while holding yellow caution tape. Terrell Gilkey ’15 spoke about his reaction to the death of Michael Brown, as he is from East St. Louis, Ill., which is about 12 miles from Ferguson, Mo. Rima Chaudry M.A. 16 spoke about her reaction as a Muslim-American to the shootings of three Muslim students in North Carolina in February, according to Hoffman. In between speakers, the students chanted “My community is crying, my community is dying” three times, according to Hoffman. At the end of the event, students listed the names of people killed by police officers within the past year as compiled by the Black Lives Matter website. 

In an interview with the Justice, Unsworth said that one of the University librarians called Brandeis police’s non-emergency phone number and asked the police to oversee the event. Unsworth, who was not in the library at the time, called this choice “a mistake…First of all, because it’s campus policy not to interfere with non-violent demonstrations but more than that ... [it was] a mistake just because of the larger national context. I think the student reaction to the presence of campus safety officers reflected that larger context and they were upset by that.” 

According to Hoffman, two officers arrived as the students were dispersing. She was disappointed with the reaction “because we are talking about a community—communities—that have been certainly violated by police…At no time did a librarian come up to us, at no time did anybody come up to us and ask, y’know, ‘Who are the organizers of this?’ There was no sort of communication and so it was just handled through campus security which was unfortunate and disappointing.”

Unsworth and Hoffman met on Monday to discuss the demonstration and the library’s new policies going forward. Unsworth relayed a personal apology at the meeting. 

Hoffman called the meeting “phenomenal,” and added that LTS staff undergoing civil disobedience training is “more than I honestly could have asked for.” 

Hoffman added that she hopes to form “a bigger collective” between undergraduate and graduate students, discussing the issues around and forming a community for marginalized students and their allies.