Q&A with Interim President Donna Shalala

The New School Free Press sat down with Interim President Donna Shalala, on Thursday, May 9 — less than one week after she sent a letter to the New York Police Department and requested they clear out student demonstrators in the University Center and Kerrey Hall. The NYPD arrested 45 people for criminal trespassing, though the university does not intend to press charges. Shalala’s term is also ending after one academic year, with her replacement planned to be announced shortly after commencement. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Take us back to the exact moment that you decided to call the NYPD to clear the encampment. 

We negotiated deep into the night to get the students out of blocking Kerrey Hall … it’s a safety hazard. Yes, we can bring the students in around [the building], but not handicapped students, not anyone that’s carrying something heavy because they’d have to walk up the stairs. 

And everybody negotiated … There was no way we could get them out. We tried everything. 

Q: What time at night did you make that decision? If you can clarify?

Late at night. I had calls from parents, I had calls from the students in the residence halls that were panicking because they couldn’t get out or get in.

I have no idea how late [it was] when we notified the police. We had no idea when they were going to arrive. 

We did tell the students and Shondrika [Merrit, dean of students] told the students three times they were in violation. She did not give it in writing. There was a whole issue about whether she should have given in writing — she didn’t need to. But the truth is that she went home. And we were still negotiating … So it was a mess. It was an absolute mess. The last thing I ever want to do is to call in the police, unless there’s a real safety issue.

We have not up until now had anything like that. 

Q: What did you hope to accomplish?

Just open up Kerrey Hall … but when the police come in, you lose control. 

I was the first person that met with them. I happened to be out running at six o’clock in the morning, I ran into the police, I was surprised that they were there. I couldn’t hold them up at that point. But I made them walk through their procedures about notification because I said in my experience, when you go in, the students will leave, and many of them did leave.

Q: There is a video circulating from the morning of the arrests, in which you discuss your letter to the NYPD to clear the encampments. In that video, you said that the order to clear the Parsons School of Design building was not initially included in your request. You specifically say, “I don’t know what’s going on in there,” referring to the Parsons encampment. 

Why wasn’t Parsons included?

Because the police would not clear Kerrey without clearing everything because they didn’t want to come back. You lose control. Once you call the police, you lose control of the situation. I knew that.

They wanted to clear the encampments at the university, or they weren’t going to clear Kerrey.

Q: Did you expect that arrests were going to be made?

I’ve been watching what’s happened in the other schools. Most of the students sort of leave. If you look at the size of the encampments … a lot of students left.

Q: Students were arrested at those encampments. Did the knowledge of how those arrests or those sweeps went down influence your decision?

I didn’t want to arrest students. I can’t repeat that enough.

Q: Did you consider that arrests would be made at all?

I assumed if the police came that some people would decide to be arrested. I didn’t think it was going to be a large number. It turned out to be a relatively small number compared to the number of people in encampments. 

Q: Did you always plan to drop the charges? Or were you ever considering upholding those?

I always intended to drop the charges, you know, for the few students that were arrested. If you think, we have 10,000 students here [at the university], and about 40 were arrested. 

Q: Whether you’ve always planned to not pursue them, the consequences of those arrests will affect the students’ personal and professional lives —

Why?

Q: Because the arrest will be on their record. 

No, they’ll be wiped off their records.

I asked them to talk to the international students first. No, we know all about that, and our students will be okay.

Editor’s note: Individuals are required to report on their visa application if they have been arrested, even if they were released with no charge.

Q: Over 200 staff and faculty members voted to pass a vote of no confidence in you and the Board of Trustees. What is your response to those calls?

I was sort of thrilled, because it’s never happened to me before. There are 2,400 members of the faculty here. 200 voted, and I respect their vote. But I’ve got to do what I think is right.

Q: What about the Board of Trustees?

I have no idea what they thought. I did pass on the information to them. 

Q: Looking back over this year in light of the arrests, is there any decision that you’ve regretted during your tenure? And are you happy with what you’ve done at the school? 

Yes, I am happy with what I’ve done in school. Do I regret arresting students? I never wanted to arrest them … And they had the option to walk away and not get arrested. 

Editor’s note: In a video obtained by the Free Press, students in Parsons who had gathered their things were told to drop everything. Their hands were immediately zip tied behind their back. Arrested students told the Free Press they did not get a chance to walk away. 

Q: Looking back to May 2, knowing what you know now, would you make the same decision?

Yes, because it was a health and safety issue. 

Q: Do you think over the course of the entire year, not just the arrest, do you think that you’ve done enough to support the progressive values and the tradition of the university?

Absolutely. If you look at what we’ve done on the budget, to ensure the future of the university, when I came, people were talking about the university possibly closing. No one’s talking about that now.

In the new budget, we strengthened faculty and graduate education. We settled two labor things … We’ve made major investments in student retention, and student space, freshmen residence halls, and student success, for example.

We did listen to students, we listened to them about water stations, and about getting rid of plastics. 

Q: Do you think that calling the NYPD to clear out the encampment was antithetical to social justice and free speech?

Social justice came into conflict with safety. But let me also say that one of my concerns during this encampment was the harassment of Jewish students. 

Q: What is the specific offensive language that students are using, or what is the hate speech that students are using?

“Child killer,” try that one. “Supporter of genocide.” Someone said that to me.

To single out Jewish and Israeli students, fellow students, to say things to them in class, to say things as they’re walking through the UC, lots of bad language and hate speech. It’s hate speech. It’s frankly hate speech. You would not defend that kind of speech. But it’s been relentless, and story after story, and we have films on it.

Q: A faculty member said the encampment “helped them realize what’s possible in terms of community and how students, faculty, and staff can coexist and share space in the building.”

Why do university members sense this continuous theme of disconnect between you and the rest of the community when it comes to characterizing the student demonstrations and how the students are protesting?

I left the encampment as long as everybody had access to class. You didn’t hear me complaining about the encampment. It was only a safety issue, a specific safety issue. 

Q: Why on the first day that the encampment was set up, did you go in person to negotiate them leaving or moving out of the lobby?

At that time, they were actually blocking the lobby. So I needed them to allow students to get in. My whole strategy has been to keep classes going. I said that from the beginning, that’s the bottom line. The bottom line is people have to be able to do their work at the university … So, our position has been consistent.

Q: You said that you have been “very tolerant of students rights’ to free speech as long as they did not interfere with educational mission.” 

Students don’t technically have their constitutional rights when they enter private universities. Do you think that we should just be tolerant of students’ right to free speech?

No, we’ve got to protect the right to free speech. I don’t care whether they’re in a public or private university, I’ve been at both. And some of it is speech I don’t like very much. 

Q: Do you think that disruption or civil disobedience is necessary to protest?

In some cases, people believe it is. So all I can say is what rules I live by, and that is we have to continue people’s ability to get to class without being harassed, or intimidated, or physically hurt in any way. And that’s what I’ve been trying to emphasize here … Everybody wants to protect the protesters. Well, what about all the other students that are being attacked? 

I think you reported all of this straight. The question is, what do you do on the editorial side? Whether you hold the student body accountable for social justice, if social justice means you just protect protesters, as opposed to protecting students that are very vulnerable in this situation? 

Q: The students that were in the encampments, and were woken up by the NYPD, don’t you think they were in a vulnerable position?

Compared to a student that is scared to death to go to class? Come on! Yes, everybody’s vulnerable. That’s why I look out for all the students … you can’t just focus on those protesters. You got to be fair. That every student ought to feel safe on this campus and every student ought to take responsibility for making sure their fellow students are safe on this campus. 

Q: You said in your interview with the Free Press “if it’s a suggestion that we like, looks like something we can do, we’re going to do it.” Do you think that you’ve met your goals of listening to students and enacting their feedback?

Never. I can never do enough. I’ve been very busy here because we had some fundamental problems that we had to solve. 

Q: Do you think that you’ve done enough to uphold the social justice [mission] throughout the work that you’ve done? 

No, never enough. You can never, I never give myself an A … I’ve done as much as I could do with the resources that I had. We had a lot of jobs that we had to fill here and a lot of blocking and tackling we needed to do just to get some fundamental things in place.

Q: You said in an interview in 2018 that you were “absolutely opposed to a boycott of any kind in terms of disinvestment as well as attacks on Israeli academics by the British Union.” Do you still oppose all boycotting?

My personal position is irrelevant because it’s a trustee decision. And the one thing I never did was express a position here. Other than the nailing of the issue on whether we should stop our relationship for the jazz students with that Israeli university. But I kept myself neutral on the divestment issue. 

Q: Do you foresee the university agreeing to cut ties with Israeli academic institutions ever? 

Never. We’re an academic institution. We don’t cut off ties with any academic institutions … We want people from different countries, whether or not we like what their government’s deciding. 

Q: Do you think that the reactivation of the Advisory Committee on Investor Relations is enough to meet the demands of divestment?

Oh I’m sure it’s not. I’m sure it’s not. But we need an in-depth look at what investments we can look at. The problem is, as you probably know, some of them are in [exchange traded funds]. And the managers don’t tell you what they’ve got in the mix. But the complication of it, the analysis of the pieces that you can see is really important, because you can’t just say to the trustees: divest. 

So will anyone around here think it’s enough? A lot of people just want us to vote on divestment. But I want to give us the best chance to make the argument to the Board of Trustees.

Q: Why don’t you want to vote immediately on divestment?

Because the trustees won’t vote immediately on divestment. So we have to have a process because no one’s made the case to them. All they’ve done is say divest, divest, divest.

Q: Is there any sort of concrete timeline in place?

I’ve asked the governance committees to make immediate appointments so they could start working immediately.

Q: Will that be something that you highlight to the next president?

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I’m going to reveal to the next president all the things I think are still on the agenda that he or she have to worry about.

Q: Do you think that you’ve ended your time as interim president on a good note?

Yeah, commencement. My favorite time of the year is when freshmen come in, and commencement. Because you feel like you’ve done something. And we’re going to have a glorious commencement. 

This interview was conducted before the NYPD arrested several protesters outside and around the University Center. 

Additional reporting by Bianca Rodriguez-Mora