A lawsuit has been filed against SUNY New Paltz President Darrell Wheeler, Ulster County Sheriff Juan Figueroa and other law enforcement officials for their roles in the arrest of more than 130 students and community members this spring.

Police in riot gear arrested students protesting Israel's role in the war in Gaza in May. Civil rights attorney Michael Sussman said the students and community members who were taken into custody were falsely arrested, and had their freedom of speech violated and excessive force used against them.

The suit acts as a plaintiff class action and a defendant class action suit, the latter meaning only a few names are named as defendants to represent all of the people on the other side of the suit. Those include Wheeler, Figueroa, State Police officers Olivia Bachor and Thomas Brusca, the Ulster County deputy sheriff and SUNY New Paltz police officer Po Yukovich.     

“What you can't do is stop the speech because you don't agree with it," Sussman said. "Once we go down that road, then where are we? And whoever is in power, as in Syria, can censor people and brutalize them and dictate that what you're supposed to believe in. That's not our country.”

State Police declined comment on the suit. The Ulster County Sheriffs' Office and SUNY New Paltz Police Department have not yet returned a call for a request for comment. 

A spokesperson for SUNY New Paltz said, “The safety of our campus community will always be paramount. We are aware of the lawsuit and intend to defend our position vigorously.”