Chancellor Reyes sent an email to the UMass community with an update on the review of campus events that took place on April 29-30 and May 7-8, 2024.

To the UMass community – 

As we approach the beginning of the spring semester, I know many of us, myself included, continue to reflect on the activism of the last year and the campus’s response. 

Building trust and transparency requires continual self-reflection and communication, both of which I remain fully committed to. In that vein, I write to share updates on the two commitments I made in June of last year. 

First, the Campus Demonstration Policy Taskforce (CDPT) was formed to review our policies and procedures. After reviewing the CDPT’s report in September, I fully endorsed their recommendations, all of which have either been enacted or are moving through the appropriate governing bodies. 

I also committed to a fully independent, external review of the events of April 29-30 and May 7-8. The University of Massachusetts Office of the General Counsel engaged Ralph C. Martin II, former Suffolk County district attorney and former general counsel for Northeastern University, to review the interventions of the Demonstration Response and Safety Team (DRST) along with the risk assessments and administrative decisions that ultimately resulted in police engagement. 

Mr. Martin, now a partner at Prince Lobel, completed and delivered his report to the Office of the General Counsel earlier this week. 

The results of this inquiry are available here.

I want to acknowledge how painful the memories of these events are for our campus and community. I hope we can use these findings, as I will, as an opportunity to learn and reflect. I also hope we can continue building a common ground and desire for mutual understanding, compassion, and a way forward, even if we continue to disagree. 

It's inspiring to see so many of us actively engaged in finding this way forward—whether through governing bodies, task forces, programs such as Intergroup Dialogue and the Community, Democracy, and Dialogue (CDD) initiative, or simply by asking how we can improve and working with each other to find solutions.

With gratitude,
Javier A. Reyes
Chancellor