Emory University is telling a DeKalb County judge that campus leaders “had no choice” but to bring in city and state police to clear a pro-Palestinian encampment from the main quad on April 25, 2024. Three tenured professors who were arrested that morning say the school went too far, broke its own rules on open expression and then let shaky misdemeanor charges hang over them before those counts were finally dropped. Their lawsuit has reopened an already raw campus fight over safety, outside organizers and how aggressively a private university can police political speech.
Emory’s defense in court
In a recent court filing, Emory argues that the tents that went up on the quad were tied to outside organizers and “carried a risk of weapons and incendiary devices.” Because of that, administrators claim they “had no choice” but to call in the Atlanta Police Department. As outlined by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the university is trying to frame its response as a safety decision, not an attempt to shut down protest.
What the professors allege
Three current professors, Noëlle McAfee, Emil’ Keme and Caroline Fohlin, responded with a civil complaint in DeKalb County Superior Court last month. They accuse Emory of wrongful arrest, negligent prosecution and violating its own policies that are supposed to protect open expression on campus. According to Georgia Recorder, the lawsuit says Emory called in outside police roughly 30 minutes after tents appeared on the quad, then declined to help shut down criminal cases that the professors insist never should have been brought.
How the April 2024 break-up unfolded
Video from that morning shows officers from Emory, the Atlanta Police Department and the Georgia State Patrol moving across the quad, using chemical irritants as they pulled down tents and detained protesters. Reporting at the time put the number of people arrested at about two dozen, a tally that included the three professors.
Coverage of the lawsuit notes that misdemeanor charges against the professors did not stick. Bloomberg Law reports that the counts were ultimately dismissed, and that this is central to the professors’ claim that Emory allowed weak prosecutions to drag on instead of stepping in to protect its own faculty.
Legal stakes and federal scrutiny
The court fight is unfolding as Emory faces separate federal scrutiny over its response to Palestine-related activism. In 2024, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened a review after civil-rights groups filed a complaint alleging a hostile environment for Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students. That investigation, combined with the fallout from the quad arrests, gives the professors’ lawsuit higher stakes for how universities try to balance safety concerns with campus speech rights, according to reporting by The Guardian.
Emory has said in public statements that it believes the lawsuit has no merit and that administrators acted responsibly to protect the campus community. The university says it will defend its decisions in court. The case remains pending in DeKalb County Superior Court, and lawyers for the professors say they are prepared to push for a trial that could seek damages and an official acknowledgement that the April 2024 response crossed a line.
