With today’s pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses as a backdrop, this article examines instances where protest management went awry, extracting some valuable lessons for de-escalating tensions and avoiding lasting harm.

‍Key Points

• Organizations need planning and the right personnel to effectively protect property and personal safety in the face of civil disobedience.
• Effective protest management hinges on specific policy directives, good lines of communication, senior management involvement, and well-trained security personnel.
• De-escalation training should include skills development in communication techniques, tactical decisionmaking, and emphasize restraint.

University campuses around the world are being tested by protests of Israel’s on-going military campaign in Gaza. Mass arrests have occurred at colleges from coast to coast in the US, and the balance between free speech and safety has been a challenge for Sorbonne University in Paris, Sapienza University in Rome, and University of Sydney in Australia, where students set up pro-Palestine encampments last week. Of course, the challenge of managing disobedience extends beyond college campuses. Worker protests are a frequent occurrence, and high-profile events are often targeted by individuals seeking attention for their cause.

One of those, for example, occurred a few years back at the annual shareholder’s meeting for General Electric, where things could have gotten out of hand. About 400 protesters had joined forces outside the GM Renaissance Center in Detroit, angry at the corporation for what they perceived as a pattern of tax avoidance. Inside, a protester interrupted the company’s CFO as he began to speak. Security officers stepped in to eject the protester, and as they did, dozens more meeting attendees stood up, chanting “Pay Your Fair Share.” It lasted until the 20 security officers on hand escorted all the disruptors out of the meeting room.

It was a security success, as these things go. Media reported on the protest and cited protesters’ claims and complaints, but because security officers on hand and the uniformed police officers outside kept things under control, it was a one-day story.

It was different at the University of California, Davis, during the height of protests of economic inequality and corporate greed several years ago. During those protests, students got faces full of pepper spray and the reputation of the school took a lasting hit as video of the clash made the rounds.

While campuses are a hotbed of such activity, average companies can also find themselves under fire. Case in point: Cleaning employees, contracted to clean a chain store’s food locations around Minneapolis (US), protested at a random store location to bring attention to their claim of union-busting activities by their employer. The scale of the event was quite different than that at UC-Davis, but the result was similar. A security guard pepper sprayed protesters, protesters alleged claims of assault (one required hospitalization), and a small protest became a big deal for both the employer and the store.

Such events raise an important question for any organization; namely, what practices will help meet the need to protect property and personal safety in the face of civil disobedience without it ending in violence? Advice from a post-incident analysis in the UC-Davis case is worth thinking about, and even though colleges are inclined to be more tolerant of dissent and protest than the average private employer, it is worth every organization’s consideration.

For private companies, there can be a million-dollar difference between a one-day, local news story and a weeks-long black eye to company reputation.

Recommended Practices

1. Write it Down

• Consolidate policies on managing demonstrations and civil disobedience. When policies are spread out among departments, or in separate locations within each department’s policy manual, confusion during an actual event is more likely.
• Include written descriptions of conduct that are or could be perceived as threatening to safety and thus trigger a use of force. (These can be shared with unions or other potential protest groups for universal agreement on what actions cross the line.)
• Ensure security policy articulates a preference for lower levels of force (e.g., persuasion, hands-on compliance), before resorting to higher levels of force (e.g., pepper spray), barring exigent circumstances.

2. Talk it Up

• Choose security provider(s) with an eye on having a good relationship between security personnel and the people they serve. A history of positive interaction between security and employees will come in handy if conflict ever arises.
• Communicate throughout the course of demonstrations with protest leaders regarding rules that security will enforce and how it will do so.

3. Have Decisionmakers Make Decisions

• Have security policy require senior management participation in planning a response to protests at company facilities or events.
• Require management approval immediately before escalation of force (absent exigent circumstances).

4. Reach Out

• Coordinate with local law enforcement in advance of planned demonstrations.
• Establish a regular program for joint training, briefings, and scenario planning with any law enforcement agency that the security department is likely to call for assistance.

5. Hire the Right People

The most effective way to avoid violent confrontations with protesters is to ensure that frontlne officers have the knowledge and the temperament to help resolve the situation in a peaceful way, the UC-Davis report concluded. It stressed the importance of having top organizational leaders approve and accept responsibility for a security response and added that compensation for frontline security must be competitive to attract and retain highly qualified security personnel. “No matter how robust our policies are, we cannot avoid breakdowns in the response to protests and civil disobedience if individual officers on the ground do not have the appropriate outlook and temperament,” the post-analysis concluded.

6. Train De-Escalation

Among the most important recommendations from an operational standpoint was the university’s call for enhanced training of security personnel. Specifically, in the areas of crowd management, mediation, and de-escalation of volatile crowd situations. “Experts emphasized that training on techniques for de-escalating protest situations is particularly important. For example, campus officers should be trained on how to limit their response to taunting and other disrespectful but not physically threatening acts,” according to the post-incident analysis. “While many de-escalation techniques may be based on common sense, the experts we spoke with agreed that these methods can be taught and rehearsed.”

Organizations should look to contract with security firms that invest in training in all three broad categories of de-escalation techniques.

• Communication techniques. Voice tone, volume, and choice of words all will affect how protesters respond.
• Tactics. Dispersal orders, calling in police, the presence of armed officers, and other tactical decisions can play a role in escalating tensions. For example, the report cited the preference when facing a few unruly protests among a largely peaceful group to target those individuals for removal rather than the entire group.
• Restraint. Some protest tactics attempt to provoke a hostile response; staying calm in the face of them is critical. Officers can be taught verbal and nonverbal tactical communication techniques, such as empathy, verbal disarming, and feedback and negotiation, which allow officers to maintain control while reducing the need to escalate to a use of force.