TROY — Citing what they say are a number of crackdowns on student protests, a campus free-speech organization has named Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to this year’s list of Worst Ten Colleges for Free Speech.

It was the second year in a row that RPI was on the list, issued by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE.

“With RPI there is a whole list of things. It’s just been an ongoing situation,” said Daniel Burnett, FIRE’s assistant director of communications.

For the most recent list, which reflects activities in 2018, FIRE cited actions the school’s administration has taken to quash protests against policies instituted by President Shirley Jackson, including a move to take control of the Student Union. RPI’s Student Union has historically been administered by students at the school.

FIRE pointed to what they say were several suppressive episodes at RPI.

In February 2018 students were removed from the sidewalk outside a hockey game by school security officers who said that eminent domain laws allowed them to force the students to leave.

The students were handing out leaflets critical of the Student Union policy as well as literature for Renew Rensselaer, a group of alumni and others who are critical of Jackson.

Eminent domain is generally considered the right of a government authority to purchase private property for a specific purpose such as a highway right of way.

When pressed on the issue, RPI said the students didn’t have prior authorization to hand out the material, FIRE noted.

Adam Steinbaugh, director of FIRE’s Individual Rights Defense Program, said RPI’s rules don’t say that permission is needed to hand out material.

“Officers exercised authority they did not possess, for the cynical purpose of exercising authority, while referencing a legal term—'eminent domain’—that sounds authoritative but has no comprehensible relationship to their roles as private security officers,” FIRE wrote to RPI after the incident.

RPI did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

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FIRE also cited an incident, reported in the Times Union, in which RPI paid Troy police to videotape students who participated in an October 2017 protest against the Student Union takeover. The administration had erected portable fences to keep the demonstrators away from attendees at a campus fund-raiser that was scheduled that evening. Two students later faced disciplinary charges due in part to the video shot by police.

“Had the video been used for training purposes, or in the prosecution of anyone arrested for actually breaking the law, that would have been one thing,” FIRE wrote of the taping. “But to supply it to the administration so it could charge students for violations not of laws but campus rules is a wholly inappropriate use of police work. They are public officers, not RPI's private security force.”

Also disturbing, say students, was the fencing the administration put up around the campus, which had the effect of cordoning the protestors off from the fundraiser attendees.

“That was unprecedented,” said Justin Etzine, the Student Union president, who added that the protests were “peaceful and orderly,” with no arrests, property damage or undue shouting.

The RPI administration ultimately asserted its control over the Student Union but the administration hasn't instituted any noticeable changes other than hiring a director, and students are still heavily involved in the Union which administers clubs and organizations on campus.

Another New York school, Syracuse University, also made FIRE’s most recent list. The group said the university wrongfully suspended more than a dozen engineering fraternity members after a video leaked out of a private satirical skit by fellow members. The video showed students taking a racist and anti-Semitic oath according to news accounts.

FIRE maintained that the skit and video, which weren’t intended for public consumption, were protected by the First Amendment.

Also on FIRE’s list are Alabama A&M University, Dixie State University, Georgetown University Qatar, Liberty University, Plymouth State University, University of Kansas, University of North Alabama, and the University of Wisconsin System.

rkarlin@timesunion.com • 518-454-5758 • @RickKarlinTU