During the past several weeks, numerous chapters of the Occupy movement have been evicted from the spaces they have been inhabiting in cities around the country. Occupy Charlottesville became the latest group to experience this fate when its City-issued permit to occupy Lee Park expired last night. Yet prior to this happening, the group decided it would carry on its protest against economic inequality in George Rogers Clark Park across from the Red Roof Inn on West Main Street.
This plan was short-circuited, however, when Michael Strine, University executive vice president and chief operating officer, sent a letter to the group pointing out that the University owns the park and will not allow an encampment to exist there. Although the administration's decision may re-enforce the Occupy movement's perception of the University as an "elitist" institution, it was the right response to ensure the maintenance of a safe environment on Grounds and the avoidance of more serious conflict with protesters in the future.
There are a number of reasons why it would be inappropriate for the University to allow the occupiers to take up residence on a portion of its property. Most obviously, some of the individuals inhabiting the Occupy encampment could pose a risk to students. The protesters themselves have not harmed anyone since gathering in Lee Park in October, but an incident in which three homeless men posing as occupiers allegedly lured two teenage girls into a tent and supplied them with alcohol is a cause for concern about the movement's ability to keep track of its members and maintain security within its own encampment.
Therefore, it would fall to the University to assume responsibility for policing the encampment so that students would not be threatened by rogue individuals or environmental hazards that could develop. Not only would this mean additional police and maintenance costs for the University, but it could also be held liable should any individual - protester, student or other community member - suffer harm as a result of the encampment. This would place an unacceptable burden on the University at a time when its resources are already stretched thin between priorities such as academic quality, financial aid and fair pay for workers. If nothing else, the segment of the Occupy movement concerned with student debt should understand that the University cannot be expected to subsidize the occupiers' ability to protest at the expense of subsidizing low-income students' tuition.\nFinally, the University was wise to step in now and prohibit the protesters from relocating to George Rogers Clark Park so as to forestall a more heavy-handed response in the future. As the above concerns illustrate, it would be impossible for the University to support the existence of an Occupy camp on Grounds indefinitely. Therefore, it would eventually have to evict the protesters in much the same way as the City and other municipalities have done when their local chapters of the Occupy movement have become unsustainable. Because violence and disorder have arisen in some of these instances, it was better for the University to simply deny the occupiers the opportunity to establish a presence on Grounds in the first place.
Some may wonder where the Occupy movement is to go if it cannot locate itself on publicly-owned lands such as Lee Park and George Rogers Clark Park. Unfortunately for the movement, there is no appealing answer to that question. Establishing an unauthorized encampment on land which one does not own or rent is inherently unlawful, so the movement should anticipate a legal response wherever it decides to carry out its chosen form of protest. The movement may consider such civil disobedience to be justified in cases in which it is targeted toward a particular institution which it views as a central cause of the inequality it opposes. Yet while the University certainly is not a perfectly egalitarian institution, it would be a stretch to say it meets that criterion for an occupation.
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