Emory professors take on their own university after arrests at 2024 Israel-Hamas war protest

ATLANTA (AP) — Three professors at Atlanta's Emory University filed a lawsuit Thursday over their arrests during a 2024 campus protest over the Israel-Hamas war, saying the university broke its own free speech policies when it called in police and state troopers to aggressively disband the protest, making 28 arrests.

“The judicial system would find that Emory failed to protect its students, to protect its staff, to protect the educational mission of the university,” said philosophy Professor Noelle McAfee, one of the plaintiffs. “So this isn’t just about people’s individual rights. It’s our educational mission to train people in free and critical inquiry, to be able to learn how to engage with others, to be fearless.”

Laura Diamond, a spokesperson for Emory, said the university believes “this lawsuit is without merit.”

“Emory acts appropriately and responsibly to keep our community safe from threats of harm,” Diamond said in a statement. “We regret this issue is being litigated but we have confidence in the legal process.”

The suit is just one example of how the nationwide wave of protests continues to reverberate on elite campuses. There are many examples of lawsuits against universities by students and faculty who say they were discriminated against because of the protests. But the Emory suit is unusual. McAfee, English and indigenous studies Professor Emilio Del Valle-Escalante and economics Professor Caroline Fohlin all remain tenured faculty members and none were convicted of any charges.

The civil lawsuit in DeKalb County State Court demands that the private university repay money the three spent defending themselves against misdemeanor charges that were later dismissed, along with punitive damages. McAfee said she's suing her employer “to try to get them to be accountable and to change.”

All three say they were observers on April 25, 2024, when some students and others set up tents on the university's main quad to protest the war. They say Emory broke its own policies by calling in Atlanta police and Georgia state troopers without seeking alternatives.

McAfee was charged with disorderly conduct after she said she yelled “Stop!” at an officer roughly arresting a protester. Del Valle-Escalante said he was trying to help an older woman when he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. Fohlin said that when she protested against officers pinning a protester to the ground, she herself was thrown face-first to the ground and arrested, suffering a concussion and a spine injury. Fohlin was charged with misdemeanor battery of an officer.

Emory claimed that day that those arrested were outsiders who trespassed on school property. But 20 of the 28 people arrested were affiliated with the university. The professors said that after their arrests, they were targeted by threats and harassment, part of a pushback by conservatives who said universities were failing to protect Jewish students from antisemitism and allowing lawlessness.

Nationwide, advocates say there is a “Palestine exception” in which universities are willing to curb pro-Palestinian speech and protest. Palestine Legal, a legal aid group supporting such speech, said Tuesday that it received 300% more legal requests in 2025 than its annual average before 2023, mostly from college students and faculty.

McAfee served as president of the Emory University Senate after her arrest. The body makes policy recommendations and had helped draft the university’s open expression policy. She said she asked then-President Gregory Fenves in fall 2024 why Emory police weren’t dropping the charges against her and others. McAfee said Fenves told her that he wanted “to see justice.” The open expression policy was revised after 2024 to clearly prohibit tents, camping, occupations of university buildings and demonstrations between midnight and 7 a.m.

Whatever the policy, McAfee said, students are afraid to protest at Emory, saying the university has turned its back on what Atlanta Civil Rights icon John Lewis called “good trouble.”

“Students know right now that any trouble is not going to be good trouble at Emory, that they could get arrested," she said. ”So students are afraid."

Noelle McAfee, an Emory University professor, talks about her lawsuit against the school over her 2024 arrest at a protest over the Israel-Hamas war on Thursday, April 23, 2026, on the Emory University campus in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)

FILE - Protesters are cuffed after being detained on the campus of Emory University during a pro-Palestinian demonstration on April 25, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)

Noelle McAfee, an Emory University professor, talks about her lawsuit against the school over her 2024 arrest at a protest over the Israel-Hamas war on Thursday, April 23, 2026, on the Emory University campus in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — An exchange of gunfire at a food court inside a Louisiana mall on Thursday killed one person and wounded five others and sent workers and shoppers scrambling for safety, police and witnesses said.

Authorities described the shooting inside the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge as a confrontation between two groups of people and not a random attack. Police Chief TJ Morse said five people were in custody and there was no ongoing threat to the public.

Authorities initially said as many as 10 people had been injured but later revised that number. Morse did not immediately say what set off the shooting at the mall in the Louisiana capital.

Desire Batton, who works at a clothing store, said she and other workers dashed inside a breakroom to protect themselves.

“We hid in there until cops came and got us,” Batton said.

The shooting began around 1:30 p.m. when the two groups argued inside the food court and started shooting at each other, Morse said. The chief made public appeals for witnesses to come forward with any video of the shooting.

By late afternoon, dozens of police cars still were clustered in the parking lot, multiple helicopters hovered overhead and armed officers in bulletproof vests patrolled the area.

Mall spokesperson Lindsay Kahn called it a “frightening day” for everyone there and said the mall would not reopen Thursday.

Kennedy Barnum, 22, said she had gone to the mall to get lunch at the food court when she heard a woman on the phone outside say, “I’ll call you back. There’s an active shooter in the mall.”

Within five minutes, Barnum said, law enforcement had swarmed the mall. She saw people running and crying, including one girl she described as “hysterical.”

“We spoke to a security guard there and she told us that there was an active shooter there, people were shot and injured, and we should leave immediately,” Barnum said.

It’s at least the second high-profile case of gun violence in Louisiana this week. A father fatally shot eight children, including seven of his own, in an attack on his family Sunday morning that stretched across two houses in a Shreveport neighborhood, police said. Two women, including the gunman’s wife who was the mother of their children, were critically wounded.

AP reporters Jack Brook in New Orleans and Jim Mustian in Natchitoches, Louisiana, contributed to this story.

Helicopters fly overhead as law enforcement respond to a shooting at the the Mall of Louisiana, Thursday, April 23, 2026, in Baton Rouge, La. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)

Law enforcement personnel respond to reports of a shooting at Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge, La., Thursday, April 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)

Law enforcement personnel respond to reports of a shooting at Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge, La., Thursday, April 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)

People react after a mass shooting at the Mall of Louisiana, Thursday, April 23, 2026, in Baton Rouge, La. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)

Law enforcement personnel respond to reports of a shooting at Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge, La., Thursday, April 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)