Last spring, Indiana University faced significant unrest amidst the Israel-Palestine protests that swept the nation. After pointing snipers at student groups in Dunn Meadow failed to quell the uproar, administrators looked towards other – more innovative – methods. This Fall, leadership discovered that they can actually stop any protest they want by simply building on top of protestors. In August, IU closed Dunn Meadow for “restoration and maintenance.”
Since then, protestors have forced administrators to get much more creative.
With Dunn Meadow out of bounds, aspiring martyrs needed somewhere else to get arrested on national television.
And in the months that followed, activists bounced from humble Lindley Hall to the great Sample Gates, much to the frustration of administrators. Rather than fight a losing battle of Tom-and-Jerry “construction closures,” President Pamela Whitten decided to close the entirety of Bloomington and surrounding Monroe County as part of an alleged capital campaign project.
“Parking lots, we’re building lots of parking lots,” said Whitten at a press conference. “Everybody’s gonna have a place for their car.”
In backfiring fashion, however, Whitten’s statement led to even more protests. This time from environmental activists upset at deforestation in the name of convenient parking. However, the protestors had nowhere to protest since the whole county’s closed – and even if it was open, they likely would have no place to park all their cars.
