Cal Poly professor facing suspension testifies about Pro-Palestine protests

Yahoo

25-05-2025

A Cal Poly English professor facing suspension over two Pro-Palestine protests last year testified Tuesday at a tense hearing on campus.
Shanae Aurora Martinez, who uses they/them pronouns, joined a January 2024 protest outside the Cal Poly Recreation Center that ended in a violent clash between police and demonstrators. Then, in May 2024, Martinez was present at another Pro-Palestine protest at the California Boulevard entrance to campus, where they communicated with police officers and protesters during the demonstration and resulting arrests.
The university alleged that Martinez's behavior at the protests created an unsafe environment and violated the California Education Code of Conduct for 'unprofessional conduct,' according to a Feb. 14 notice of pending disciplinary action mailed to Martinez.
The letter recommended that Martinez be suspended for two quarters without pay for their conduct.
Associate vice provost for academic personnel Simone Aloisio represented the university during the hearing, which was held in a biology classroom in the Fisher Science Building on campus.
'During these protests, Dr. Martinez's conduct escalated tensions in the manner that had the potential to cause significant harm to others,' he said in his opening statement.
Martinez, however, said they were defending their students' right to protest safely on campus, and therefore fulfilling their duties as a faculty member.
Martinez was hired in 2019 as part of the College of Liberal Art's diversity, equity and inclusion cluster hire.
Their scholarship is intertwined with their activism, they said, so supporting and defending students at a protest aligned with their work as a community-engaged scholar.
'I am here today not only to defend myself against these accusations that I do not respect my colleagues, I do not care about community, that I am somehow the mastermind of these protests — but rather to defend free speech in this highly repressive political context, especially when that speech calls out genocide,' Martinez said in their opening statement.
A three-person Faculty Hearing Committee reviewed the case on Tuesday, and the members must recommend an outcome for Martinez's case within 14 days of the hearing. President Jeffrey Armstrong will then make the final decision.
The committee included Cal Poly professors Samantha Gill, Gregory Schwartz and Pasha Tabatabai, with Crow White as the alternate member.
The classroom filled with Martinez's family, friends, colleagues and students. Meanwhile, six police officers were stationed outside of the classroom in the hallway.
Aloisio kicked off his presentation with video footage of the January protest.
On Jan. 23, 2024, about 25 people gathered outside the Rec Center to protest defense companies recruiting at Cal Poly's Winter Career Fair. The demonstrators urged the university to take a stance against Israel's military tactics in Gaza, which they called genocide.
Aloisio showed police body camera footage of about seven protesters carrying 5-foot-tall plywood shields, which they used to push the metal barricades into police officers guarding the Rec Center.
Other protesters, including Martinez, then joined the shield bearers to push on the barricades.
The police report said the protesters pushed the barricades first. Martinez, however, said the police officers were the first to pick up the barricades and march them into the crowd in an apparent attempt to push the demonstrators back.
Martinez pushed on the barricades to defend the area the students were protesting in and protect them from the police, they said.
'It felt very volatile. I wasn't going to stand back and see them get run over,' Martinez said.
When everyone dropped the barricades, officers started arresting protesters. Police did not issue a dispersal order, but they told protesters approaching the Rec Center that they would be arrested if they entered the building.
Martinez watched police tackle and arrest a student, so the professor followed the officers into the Rec Center to protect the student.
'I was afraid they were going to do something to the student,' Martinez said.
Officers told Martinez to step back, informing them that they were interfering with the arrest. Martinez countered, telling the officers they were interfering with their job as a professor, video footage showed.
Meanwhile, outside of the Recreation Center, one officer threw another protester to the ground and punched them in the stomach three times, video footage showed. That same officer pushed another demonstrator down the stairs while the group retreated. The officer did not violate the San Luis Obispo Police Department's policy, so he did not face disciplinary action, San Luis Obispo Police Chief Rick Scott told The Tribune soon after the protest.
Aloisio said Martinez's decision to push the barricades endangered people in the area.
'This action not only undermines the role of law enforcement in maintaining order, but it poses a risk of harm to both officers and other individuals in the facility,' Aloisio said. 'Physical confrontation, regardless of intent, has the potential to escalate situations beyond control, endangering the safety of everyone involved, including protesters and bystanders.'
Martinez's faculty representative, San Jose State State University professor Sang Hea Kil, disagreed. She said Martinez intended to protect the protesters from the police, who were behaving aggressively and responsible for creating an unsafe environment.
'She was concerned students would be harmed by the barricades, and so applied force to the barriers, not to act in violence, but to act in defense of her students,' Kil said.
Martinez was not arrested at the protest, but on March 4, the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney's Office charged them with battery of a police officer.
Instead of going to jail or paying a fine, Martinez is set to receive diversion for the battery charge — meaning they will be placed on probation, perform community service and eventually have the charge dismissed, they said.
The second witness was Maren Hufton, Cal Poly's associate vice president of civil rights, employee and labor compliance.
The university appointed her to conduct 'a neutral, impartial and objective investigation' of Martinez's behavior at the two protests, she said.
Hufton reviewed Cal Poly Police Department reports, police body camera and cell phone footage of both protests, and interviewed Martinez before informing the university that she believed Martinez violated the California Education Code of Conduct, the Campus Civility Statement, Cal Poly's Statement on Commitment to Community and the Faculty Code of Ethics.
Hufton did not interview a list of witnesses Martinez provided to her. The list included two people who saw the January protest and two who saw the May protest.
Though students had a right to protest, 'it was clear that students did not have a right to push metal barricades into peace officers. They did not have a right to enter a private event,' she said.
Additionally, shouting at officers that students have a right to protest risked 'injury through escalation and confrontation,' she said.
Hufton said university rules would have allowed Martinez to attend the protests if they had kept a distance from the barricades, followed officer instructions and properly informed protesters of lawful activity.
'Cal Poly ... did not hire Dr. Martinez and does not pay Dr. Martinez to impede the work of peace officers who are trying to bring calm to a chaotic situation,' Hufton said.
Kil, however, said that Martinez upheld the four 'morality' codes Hufton cited by advocating for student protesters.
Cal Poly student Eman Castillo Hernandez also testified at the hearing. He participated in the January protest, but he did not organize the demonstration or see Martinez while he was there.
Still, he defended Martinez's actions — explaining that protest organizers often ask professors to serve as peace liaisons between themselves and the police.
'Me and other students trust more the faculty than we do the police, and for very good reason. A lot of us are students of color, and we've had negative experiences with the police,' he said. 'Faculty like Dr. Shanae are essential to student movements in that they help keep us safe, they help prevent the twisting of narratives, like what's happening right now.'
Political science professor Martin Battle attended the January protest to serve as a police liaison. Both he and Martinez entered the Rec Center to watch over protesters who had been arrested, then went to the San Luis Obispo County Jail afterward to help the students connect with lawyers and organize a bail fund, he said.
'In the end, she seemed to be doing the thing that I was doing: Making sure the students were protected — which is what I think our role as academics are,' Battle said.
During the Pro-Palestine protest on May 23, 2024, demonstrators chained themselves to wooden barricades set up in the crosswalk of California Boulevard and Campus Way. Eventually, police arrested eight protesters without incident.
Martinez mistakenly told protesters that they could legally walk back and fourth across the crosswalk after police told them to disperse — advice that Martinez thought was true at the time.
During the California Faculty Association Strike in May, the members were permitted to walk in the crosswalk, Martinez said, so they thought the Pro-Palestine protesters could do the same.
In her testimony, Hufton said Martinez put students at risk of arrest by telling them they could walk in the crosswalk, which violated a professor's role as 'an intellectual guide and counselor,' Hufton said.
Cal Poly professor Brianna Ronan witnessed the May protest and testified at the hearing on Tuesday.
Like Martinez, she communicated with police, protesters and administrators at the scene.
Ronan said she didn't understand why the university moved to discipline Martinez for the May protest, as Martinez was out there supporting students — just like she was.
In the disciplinary letter, then-Cal Poly provost Cynthia Jackson-Elmoore recommended that the university suspend Martinez for two quarters without pay.
'We have two separate instances of similar conduct which shows a pattern, therefore two quarters is an appropriate sanction,' Hufton said in her testimony.
When asked by the committee, Hufton could not explain why the provost recommended a two-quarter suspension without pay instead of another sanction, nor could she share what precedent or policy supported the sanction.
Kil argued that the sanction did not match the charges.
'The sort of unpaid suspension they're proposing should be reserved for the most serious infractions with malicious intent, not a professor doing her best in a tense situation,' Kil said.
If the university moves forward with the sanction, Martinez would lose eight of the 12 paychecks they earn annually, which amounts to about $60,000, they said, as well as progress toward tenure.
'This will mean I cannot pay my rent, I cannot pay for my transportation to work. I will lapse in my insurance. I will lapse in my student loan debt,' they said. 'This will have enormous consequences for me financially, in addition to disrupting the ongoing projects I have with students.' Most of all, Martinez worried that suspension would discourage faculty from supporting student activism. 'It's going to set a dangerous precedent for repressing free speech, or at least the ways in which we support our students outside of the classroom as whole people, not just as students,' Martinez said.
After Hufton's testimony, Kil said she thought Hufton appeared to be an advocate for the university — which would conflict with her role as an 'impartial fact-finder' and degrade the fairness of the hearing.
Hufton, however, maintained that she attended as a witness to testify about her investigation.
Hufton sat at a table with Aloisio, and the pair often whispered to each other throughout the day. All other witnesses, however, sat in the audience, waited in the hallway, or appeared via Zoom or on video.
Later, during a tense moment, a professor who witnessed the January protest walked out of the hearing.
Kil shared that some witnesses declined to testify due to concerns about retaliation. Aloisio objected to this comment, calling it speculation.
Cal Poly art and design professor Elizabeth Folk then stood up, and said, 'That is why I declined to serve as a witness.'
She picked up her bag and walked out of the room.
On Thursday, Folk told The Tribune that she declined to to serve as a witness at Martinez's hearing because of the 'hostile campus climate' the university created after canceling the 2024 Social Justice Teach In, which was scheduled to include a series of discussions and events called 'Justice for Palestine.'
Meanwhile, years of watching the university mishandle student, faculty and staff disciplinary procedures also deterred her from testifying, she said.
'I was not confident that I would be treated with fairness and respect,' Folk told The Tribune.
The committee must submit a written decision to Armstrong within 14 days of the hearing, according to the California Faculty Association's Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Then, President Jeffrey Armstrong must make a final decision within 15 days of receiving the committee's recommendation.
If Armstrong's decision conflicts with the Faculty Hearing Committee, Martinez can file an appeal with the CSU Office of the Chancellor requesting arbitration.
If Armstrong and the committee agree, then the decision is binding and cannot be appealed, the Collective Bargaining Agreement said.