Resource Round-up: Expressive Activity Policies and Hazing Prevention

Dear Terps,

At the University of Maryland, we prioritize the health and safety of our community and provide our students, staff and faculty with the resources they need to support this shared commitment. As we begin another semester together, this commitment takes many forms—from fostering open dialogue to preventing harmful practices and ensuring accountability.

Creating Safe Spaces for Learning and Expression

At its core, the University of Maryland serves as an institution of higher learning where thoughts and ideas can be freely exchanged and explored. Our community grows stronger when we welcome a variety of perspectives while treating one another with respect and care.

Our campus offers multiple pathways for you to share your voice, and we are here to help you navigate them. When planning expressive activities, university representatives work closely with demonstrators and event organizers to provide guidance, coordinate security needs and offer support through a resource team, which consists of volunteer staff trained to support members of our community as they make their voices heard.

As always, campus safety remains paramount. Our university police department works thoughtfully with campus leadership to assess each situation, recognizing that different activities call for different approaches to keeping everyone secure.

Campus life – including interactions you may encounter in your classroom or workspace – may bring you face-to-face with ideas that challenge your thinking. In addition, designated expressive spaces on campus, like the McKeldin Mall and Hornbake Plaza, can be reserved, in accordance with our policies and procedures, by internal or external groups whose messages may not align with our university values. As a public institution, we cannot discriminate on the basis of content or viewpoint and must allow such groups to be heard as well. 

We encourage all of our students, faculty and staff to visit freespeech.umd.edu, which includes our Statement on Free Speech Values, as well as guidance on protected and unprotected speech, academic freedom, civility and respect. We also encourage any member of the community who feels they’ve experienced threatening or intimidating conduct, bias, discrimination, and/or harassment to promptly report such incidents through one or more of the resources listed on the above website.

Preventing Hazing

Fostering a safe campus community also means protecting our students from harmful practices like hazing. The Stop Campus Hazing Act (SCHA), signed into law in 2024, requires higher education institutions to educate their communities about hazing and its prevention through campus-wide programs and by publishing information. 

We encourage you to visit the university’s new Hazing Prevention at Maryland website, which outlines our policies and programs related to hazing, and provides additional information, resources and training modules for all students and employees.

In accordance with the SCHA, the university will also begin to include reported hazing incidents in its 2026 Annual Security Report (ASR), which is published annually pursuant to the Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act.

It is the responsibility of all students and employees to be aware of the information contained on the university’s hazing prevention website. We encourage you to review these resources carefully. 

The university is committed to maintaining an educational and working environment free of hazing. If there are any questions, please contact the Office of Student Conduct at studentconduct@umd.edu or review the resources posted online for all members of our community. 

Thank you for your ongoing commitment to fostering a campus community where safety, respect and open dialogue can flourish together.

Sincerely,