How Cal Poly Humboldt plans to enforce Time, Place, Manner Policies change
by Savana Robinson and Eli Farrington
After a historic week-long protest and occupation at Cal Poly Humboldt, activism, which is at the heart of campus culture, may be impacted. On Aug. 15, less than two weeks before the start of the fall semester, the California State University (CSU) system adopted a systemwide change to the Time, Place, and Manner (TPM) policy.
TPM is a set of rules that determine the time, place, and manner in which expressive activity may be conducted on campus. On the first day of the semester, Cal Poly Humboldt announced its recruitment for the Community Engagement Team (CET). The team was created to support a nonviolent, accessible, and inclusive campus environment, and to educate the campus community on freedom of expression in compliance with TPM Policy.
All CSUs have their own addendum of the TPM Policy — a version of rules that apply in the context of each university. These addendums were also updated to reflect the TPM changes. For example, Cal Poly Humboldt’s addendum requires approval prior to distributing or posting informational material, which includes signs, chalk, and posters. It also specifies that campus is closed to the public from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., prohibiting overnight camping or encampments without permission beforehand. According to the Dean of Students and Associate Vice President of Student Success Mitch Mitchell, administration has been working on TPM for more than a year.
“Our focus is more of an educational approach,” Mitchell said. “It’s not a point that we’re trying to minimize or censor free speech. We just don’t want it to become a situation where it becomes unlawful.”
Such situations include last semester’s pro-Palestine protest and occupation of Siemens Hall from April 22-30. Former University President Tom Jackson Jr. and his administration made the decision to bring law enforcement onto the campus to restore order, according to an email from Cal Poly Humboldt Marketing & Communications sent to the entire student body on the final day of protests.
“The operation’s objective was to establish control of the site; protect the rights, safety, and health of students and employees; eliminate the threat of violence and criminal behavior; and reestablish control of buildings and other property,” the email stated.
Mitchell’s priority is to optimize the way in which students and community members advocate on campus.
“As far as starting to build the structure and format for the Community Engagement Team, we kind of had an ad hoc team that we were trying to develop, and we were behind the curve at one point in time, and then we saw a need and a gap … and we figured out how we could accommodate that and support students,” Mitchell said. “Students may not know their rights and their privileges.”
Mitchell explained that the TPM Policy shows students how to express themselves safely on campus.
“It gives a format or guideline,” Mitchell said. “ I don’t know if students are knowledgeable, aware of how to go about expressing and advocating and communicating how they feel broadly.”
Another notable aspect of the addendum is that it does not allow for amplified sound that disturbs regular campus activities. The previous University TPM Policy allowed amplified sound on the Upper Quad from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Rick Toledo, founder of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) — a registered student organization at Cal Poly Humboldt — expressed his concern about the changes. Toledo took issue with the removal of the amplified sound policy.
“They’re saying there are really no approved times when you can have a rally or a protest with amplified sound,” Toledo said. “That’s a huge problem for us. They’re completely gutting the one thing we still had in the old policy that allowed us to do that.”
Toledo explained another problem that this poses to campus activism.
“It restricts us from being able to have an effective protest because the whole point of a protest or a rally is disruption — it’s to make a lot of noise on the campus to disrupt things that are happening and to get the word out to people,” Toledo said.
Toledo said that the SDS is trying to figure out the best way to go about activism without breaking policy.
“We have students who were arrested during the occupation and who were suspended, who are now in danger of having worse consequences if something else were to happen,” Toledo said. “So, we have to consider the safety of our activists, the safety of our faculty advisor, and their job.”
Backlash among the campus community about the policy change is likely.
“It seems like there is a greater movement forming that’s CSU-wide since this is a CSU-wide policy so that we can actually act against it, systemwide,” Toledo said. “It seems like the actual fight for that will be a little while in the making, and it’ll probably end up being something that is happening across most of the campuses at once when there is eventually full-on pushback against that.”
As an established campus and community activist, Toledo is passionate about freedom of speech and the right to assemble and is worried that the new TPM Policies will impede that.
“At this point, what they’re doing is preventing us from having our voices heard, from gathering, from truly gathering and having, like a rally together, from having these protests together,” Toledo said. “There’s nothing unlawful about a protest or a rally. It’s really just that they don’t like it. They don’t want it, so they’re shutting it down.”
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