SR 168: supporting the request by the University of Hawaii at Manoa Faculty Senate for a commitment from University of Hawaii leaders to remain steadfast in vigorously defending any and all students, faculty, or staff who may be attacked for exercising their rights to academic freedom and free speech.

SENATE RESOLUTION

supporting the request by the University of Hawaii at Manoa Faculty Senate for a commitment from University of Hawaii leaders to remain steadfast in vigorously defending any and all students, faculty, or staff who may be attacked for exercising their rights to academic freedom and free speech.

     WHEREAS, the University of Hawaii community has historically played critical roles in moral leadership through peaceful protests during controversial times: from opposing the Vietnam War, opposing the naming of the Social Sciences building after eugenicist Stanley Porteus, opposing South African Apartheid, preventing kalo from being genetically altered and patented, and protecting Mauna Kea; and

     WHEREAS, the political and artistic expressions of these past protests would all be in violation of the currently proposed "Time, Place, and Manner" restrictions contained in the University of Hawaii's revisions to its "Executive Policy 10.206 Time, Place, and Manner Restrictions on Expressive Activities"; and

     WHEREAS, in 2024 and 2025, many universities began implementing similarly restrictive "Time, Place and Manner" policies, under which lecturers, graduate assistants, students, and faculty from these same schools have since been reprimanded, disciplined, or terminated for exercising their rights to academic freedom and free speech; and

     WHEREAS, the University of Hawaii's proposed revised policies would deter students, faculty, and staff from exercising their rights to academic freedom and free speech and create an unnecessarily antagonistic relationship between the University of Hawaii administration and the broader university community; and

     WHEREAS, many students, faculty, and staff feel afraid and vulnerable, and collective action makes the university community more likely to exercise their rights to academic freedom and free speech; and

     WHEREAS, during a period in history in which civil rights, civil liberties, and the freedom and autonomy of institutions of higher education are under sustained attack, the University of Hawaii should strengthen, not restrict, the rights to academic freedom and free speech and should empower the community to exercise those rights; now, therefore,

     BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Thirty-third Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2026, that this body supports the request by the University of Hawaii at Manoa Faculty Senate for a commitment from University of Hawaii leaders to remain steadfast in vigorously defending any and all students, faculty, or staff who may be attacked for exercising their rights to academic freedom and free speech; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this body supports the University of Hawaii at Manoa Faculty Senate's Resolution to Oppose Time, Place, and Manner Restrictions and Rectify Academic Freedom Policy, which was adopted on February 18, 2026; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the Chairperson of the Board of Regents of the University of Hawaii; President of the University of Hawaii; and Administrative Officer of the Manoa Faculty Senate of the University of Hawaii.

Report Title: 

University of Hawaii; Assembly and Student Protest