Response to today’s news conference

This afternoon, The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)-Philadelphia held a news conference related to a demonstration that occurred last week during a career fair held on Temple University's campus. During that demonstration, a group of 12-15 individuals, including both Temple students and non-Temple individuals, caused a major disruption for several hundred students who attended the fair and the visiting employers.

Yesterday, in advance of today's news conference, representatives from Temple University reached out to CAIR to schedule a meeting, so we could share concerns and work toward meaningful dialogue regarding the September 26 event. CAIR officials and university administrators have scheduled a meeting for tomorrow. The university was disappointed that the meeting could not occur before the news conference because there were several instances where misinformation was shared today.

As an institution, Temple is committed to the free discourse of ideas. We encourage and educate our students to use their voices to advocate for their beliefs and values, raise awareness, and provoke thought. We do that, however, within a context of more than 30,000 fellow students, faculty and staff who all have a right to access their education, employment, and also express themselves.

Students and student organizations have the right to protest; however, the university has established rules and procedures to ensure protests and demonstrations can proceed safely and without harassment and intimidation of others. These rules are equally applied to all our groups, and in fact, the university has spent considerable time in the past months educating our student leaders and student groups about those rules.

What occurred last week was not a peaceful protest. It was a major disruption to an event intended to help students find jobs and internships. As a result of the aggressive protesting, several visiting employers were escorted from the space for their safety and students were denied an opportunity to engage with potential employers - some students left the event entirely.

When protestors were approached by several administrators and police supervisors, the protestors were non-responsive and ignored their outreach. When police approached the group a final time to lawfully detain the leader, several other protestors pushed and shoved police officers, which resulted in the apprehension of four individuals, as previously reported. This consequence was not a result of the content of the protest, but rather the physically aggressive behavior of the protestors and the significant negative impact on the university event.

In the wake of the event, rampant inaccurate rumors were spread. Many were already addressed in a TUPD post here. To reiterate, after review of hours of surveillance and other camera footage, among other things, there has been no evidence that a protestor had her hijab forcefully removed; there is no evidence any protestor had clothing ripped open; and there is no evidence a protestor was assaulted. These behaviors will not be tolerated. We continue to encourage anyone who has any evidence of such events occurring, should submit it to [email protected].