Boston College administrators required organizers of a Feb. 13 pro-Palestinian demonstration to revise and remove portions of their speeches, disclose speakers’ identities, and refrain from using amplified sound and “public facing” advertising before granting approval to demonstrate on campus, according to email exchanges obtained by The Heights.
“We couldn’t have any speech that wasn’t at least summarized before,” said TJ Smith, one of the organizers of the demonstration and MCAS ’26. “Our speeches have to be in line with the outline they’ve approved. Our chants have to be approved verbatim. Our signs have to be approved verbatim, and if we deviate from this it would result in further action.”
Pro-Palestinian organizers cited a Feb. 6 email from Associate Vice President for Student Engagement and Formation Colleen Dallavalle as evidence of their concerns about potential disciplinary action if they did not stick to their pre-approved speeches.
“Please also note that any deviation from content as outlined and/or speech that does not align with our student code of conduct may result in further action,” Dallavalle’s email reads.
Dallavalle asked organizers to submit an itinerary that underwent five revisions before the University approved it. These documents detailed the specific contents of speeches, chants, flyers, timelines, and names of event organizers and speakers.
According to an email exchange obtained by The Heights, it took the University 80 days to grant approval for organizers to demonstrate on campus following their initial request on Nov. 18.
Organizers resubmitted the itinerary four times, with the final six-page version incorporating multiple University-mandated revisions.
“They took out one of our chants: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’” Smith told The Heights. “They told us, according to the Anti-Defamation League, it’s classified as hate speech.”
Itineraries obtained by The Heights confirm that the chant was removed following a Jan. 16 meeting between organizers and University representatives. The organizers said they removed the chant to comply with the University’s requirements.
In a statement to The Heights, University administrators said they follow procedures outlined in the student code of conduct when approving campus demonstrations.
“The University carefully follows its own policies and expects all students to abide by the Student Code of Conduct at all times, including during registered demonstrations,” Dallavalle wrote. “Input or guidance provided to students seeking to register demonstrations is based on the requirement that students abide by all standards in the Student Code of Conduct.”
When The Heights asked administrators whether they required changes to speeches or chants as a condition for approval, they did not explicitly deny having done so.
Organizers said University administrators repeatedly asked them to revise itineraries and remove specific words from their speeches following joint meetings. Emails confirm that administrators often followed up with modifications that needed to be made to the itineraries before the demonstration could be approved.
“As we discussed in our meeting, we need additional detail regarding the content of the program itself including but not limited to the identities of those involved,” Dallavalle wrote in a Dec. 2 email.
Unlike BC, universities like Harvard require students to obtain approval to reserve space for protests but do not require prior approval of protest content to the same extent BC does.
When asked whether BC would approve a demonstration without first reviewing its content and speech, administrators did not directly respond to The Heights‘ inquiry.
Emily Ternynck, MCAS ’25 and a co-president of Climate Justice at Boston College (CJBC), said she has previously been through the process of registering a demonstration and agreed that organizers on BC’s campus face a restrictive approval process.
“[The process] was pretty tedious and it was very clear that we were limited in what we could do,” Ternynck wrote in a statement to The Heights describing her experience with the application process. “We felt that if we had pushed for an open event or a topic/title that was more overtly critical of BC, it wouldn’t have been approved.”
According to the email exchanges, BC also mandated that the organizers identify all the speakers before proceeding further in the approval process.
“While I understand you do not want to share the names of individuals involved, we are unable to move forward in the review process without knowing who will be involved in all capacities of the program,” Dallavalle wrote to the organizers on Dec 3.
On Jan. 22, Dallavalle also informed the organizers that the University would not be permitting them the use of amplified sound, such as bullhorns and megaphones, even though BC’s student demonstration policy allows for their use after 5 p.m. with administrator approval.
When organizers questioned Dallavalle on why the University denied their request, she cited a directive to deny amplified sound whenever classes are in session. Organizers argued in an email that this contradicted past precedent.
“This reason does violate precedent, as we have witnessed approval for amplified sound for outdoor “demonstrations” during class time (which extends daily until at least 8PM) for groups such as CJBC, MSA, Hillel, ALC, and the Women’s Center,” organizers wrote in a reply. “However, if the policy of your office has changed for no amplification of sound while any classes are running, we urge you to amend the code of conduct to reflect as much; it is currently misleading in that it suggests a possibility of amplified sound being approved within a given time frame, when this is in fact not possible.”
When the University approved the demonstration on Feb. 6, administrators asked organizers whether they wished to receive additional resources on bias-motivated or anti-Semitic conduct and speech.
When The Heights inquired whether it was standard practice for the University to provide ‘bias-motivated’ or ‘anti-Semitic’ resources to all organizers, and, if not, what prompted the University to believe these organizers were at risk of such speech, the administrators did not respond.
Throughout the approval process, including in a Feb. 6 email, Dallavalle repeatedly referenced “campus stakeholders” who needed to be consulted before approval to the pro-Palestinian organizers could be granted.
Administrators did not respond when The Heights inquired about the identity of these stakeholders, the reasoning behind their involvement, and whether it is standard policy for administrators to seek approval from undisclosed parties before permitting students to organize.
On Feb. 13, the day of the demonstration, Associate Vice President and Dean of Students Corey Kelly contacted the organizers, requesting that they ask a third-party Instagram account to remove a post advertising the event to limit its visibility to non-BC students on social media.
“I’m reaching out to let you know that we received a report about an Instagram post from an account with the name bcequality, that has posted an advertisement for the demonstration today on their story,” Kelly wrote. “Because of the concerns that we have discussed related to public social media exposure and that this is only an event for BC community members, I am requesting that you reach out to the bcequality account to ask them to remove the image of the poster or any other advertisement for today’s demonstration from their account.”
Asked what the consequences are for students if they do not comply with the University’s request to remove ‘public-facing’ media shared by third parties, the University did not respond.
Smith said the University’s policies were restrictive and violated its Jesuit values.
“They are clearly misinterpreting the definition of freedom when claiming to allow an outlet for free speech and assembly,” said Smith. “And it is not just the constitutional rights that BC is scorning in their actions here. It is the principles of higher education, their professed commitment to progress, to discourse and critical exploration ideas, and most certainly the Christian Jesuit values.”
Leave a Reply