When the three trans* activists charged with participating in the direct action campaign against gender segregated bathrooms last month went before the SJB on Wednesday, they didn’t go alone. Alongside them stood more than 40 of their friends and allies who packed the lobby of North College in a display of solidarity and support. This energetic but civil crowd included students, professors, and even two supporters from New Haven who had read about the hearing on the Internet and drove up to condemn the University’s response to the actions.

The official SJB protocol allows those accused to invite witnesses to give testimony. Many of those assembled at North College had prepared statements wherein they intended to creatively ‘bear witness’ to the injustice of the proceedings, while refusing to give incriminating testimony in direct relation to the events themselves. In effect, supporters successfully staged a sort of filibuster of the hearing which ultimately lasted a grueling 4.5 hours.

Aside from the massive display of solidarity, which over the course of the afternoon transformed the North College lobby into a temporary encampment of snoozing, snacking, card-playing, homework-doing, carpet-lounging supporters, many things about the proceeding were irregular. For one, the administration had stationed a particularly burly PSafe officer to stand guard at the door. Furthermore, Dean Scott Backer insisted on being present throughout the hearing, the questioning, and the witness testimonies. Reports from inside indicate that he repeatedly interrupted or attempted to cut short the witness testimonies, and at one point threatened to table the hearing entirely despite the fact that dozens of witnesses were assembled outside waiting to testify.