Dear Triton Community,
Last night, a group of protesters, many of them wearing masks, disrupted a public lecture by an invited speaker on our campus. The protesters crowded entryways and used amplified sound to effectively shout down the speaker and force the event to end. Currently, the incident is under investigation.
This conduct is an affront to the mission of our university. It violates campus policies and our Principles of Community, and is antithetical to our values and the educational mission of UC San Diego.
Our institution values freedom of thought, inquiry, discussion and debate. We affirm and support academic freedom and the constitutional right to free expression, and invite the community to join in dialogue and discourse, instead of promoting combative confrontations.
To those who experienced the disruption yesterday, we extend our sincerest apologies. We are reviewing this event to determine what steps we can take to try to prevent unacceptable disruptions moving forward.
We encourage every member of the Triton community to recommit to free expression that is enshrined in civility and decency for all. It is a value the Academic Senate recently committed to in a resolution on free speech and academic freedom, in which we “commit to a culture of dialogue in the form of respectful debate.”
Sincerely,
