Glenn College, Ohio State Share Free Speech, Public Safety Experiences with Global City Leaders

The Strong Cities Network, an independent global network, spent one day of its “City Leadership in Maintaining Social Cohesion Amid Global Crises” event on campus learning about ways the Glenn College assists the Columbus Division of Police in managing peaceful demonstrations and how Ohio State balances free speech and public safety in response to public protests on campus.

Attendees included city leaders from across the United States and countries including Slovakia, Germany, Ukraine, the U.K. and Hungary.

“This Strong Cities Network event is a great partnership between this pro-peace, pro-conflict-reduction international network, the City of Columbus and Ohio State to serve as a forum for leaders from across the world to share the challenges they face at the municipal level, while also showcasing things that work and their best practices,” said Glenn College Dean Trevor Brown. 

“Given the complex nature of the hate and extremism threats facing communities across the United States, Strong Cities recognizes the need for city-led efforts to prevent and respond to them to be multidisciplinary and draw on innovations and expertise from different local partners, including universities,” said Eric Rosand, executive director of Strong Cities Network. “Universities, in particular, can help cities ‘widen the lens’ when it comes to thinking about how best to tackle these threats. Partnerships with universities can help ensure city-led efforts draw on expertise from a variety of disciplines and are evidence-based and thus most likely to be effective. We were honored to be able to collaborate with the City of Columbus and the John Glenn College of Public Affairs on last week’s conference and elevate their partnership as a model for other cities and universities to follow.”

Professor Clifford Stott, a Glenn College visiting faculty member and crowd behavior expert from the Keele Policing Academic Collaboration at Keele University in England, gave a presentation about how his method of explaining crowd psychology and training police agencies has been used across the world, including in the United Kingdom and Ukraine. 

“Through this new science, we’ve begun to understand that the solutions to effective public order management in the local context relate to enhancing police capacity for communication and also developing strategies of facilitation — not just the control of negative behavior, but also the facilitation of positive and lawful constitutionally protected behavior,” Stott said.

Rosand said Strong Cities plans to invite Stott to join its distinguished group of subject matter experts, which the network draws on to deliver tailored support to help cities maintain social cohesion in the midst of global crises. In addition, Stott will present his research and approach to managing public protests to network members at an upcoming webinar. 

“Through these and other means, we are committed to ensuring that more cities around the globe can benefit from Professor Stott’s expertise much like Columbus has,” Rosand said.

In another session, an Ohio State panel discussed ways the university protects free speech and public safety on campus, using a case study example of protests related to the Israel-Gaza crisis.

The panel, moderated by Trudy Bartley, associate vice president of local and community relations, featured Melissa Shivers, senior vice president for student affairs, and Monica Moll, director of public safety.

Among the efforts, the university initiates communication with groups who might plan demonstrations; upholds consistency in working with all student groups; builds knowledge and training for the university police to understand the viewpoints and experiences of the students; maintains relationships with state and local officials; and helps the university community know that the university is there to support the right to freedom of expression and to understand the difference between free speech and hate speech.

To make sure university community members feel comfortable sharing differing points of view, Ohio State outlines policies and rules for participants to exercise their freedom of speech and expression. In addition, the university promotes the development of skills for challenging conversations through a “Listen. Learn. Discuss.” platform and website with tools and resources.

“This is an open, public institution, so folks have the right to be on campus in our public spaces marching, protesting and demonstrating,” Moll said. “We have to allow for freedom of expression and have robust debate but protect the individuals that are engaging in that and also support others on campus who might be affected by those demonstrations and protests, and we work closely with Student Life in that endeavor.”