ATLANTA — Three tenured Emory University professors filed a lawsuit on April 23, 2026, in DeKalb County State Court claiming their arrests during a 2024 campus protest over the Israel-Hamas war violated the university's free-speech policies. The professors said Emory broke its own policies by calling in Atlanta police and Georgia state troopers to disband the protest, resulting in 28 arrests.

The lawsuit demands that the university repay Noelle McAfee, Emilio Del Valle-Escalante and Caroline Fohlin for legal fees from defending against dismissed misdemeanor charges and pay punitive damages. None of the three were convicted of any charges.

"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. "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," she said.

"This lawsuit is without merit," said Emory spokesperson Laura Diamond. "Emory acts appropriately and responsibly to keep our community safe from threats of harm."

The three professors say they were observers on April 25, 2024, when students and others set up tents on the university's main quad to protest the Israel-Hamas war. Of the 28 people arrested, 20 were affiliated with the university. The university said those arrested were outsiders who trespassed on school property.

McAfee was charged with disorderly conduct after yelling "Stop!" at an officer who was roughly arresting a protester. Del Valle-Escalante was charged with disorderly conduct after trying to help an older woman during the protest. Economics professor Caroline Fohlin said she was thrown face-first to the ground and arrested, suffering a concussion and a spine injury, when she protested officers pinning a protester to the ground. She was charged with misdemeanor battery of an officer. The professors said that after their arrests, they were targeted by threats and harassment during a conservative pushback claiming universities failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitism and allowed lawlessness.

Following 2024, the university revised its open expression policy to prohibit tents, camping, occupations of university buildings and demonstrations between midnight and 7 a.m. McAfee, who served as president of the Emory University Senate after her arrest, said she asked then-President Gregory Fenves in fall 2024 why university police were not dropping the charges against her and others. "Students know right now that any trouble is not going to be good trouble at Emory, that they could get arrested," McAfee said. "So students are afraid," she added.