On Dec. 5, 2025, the Sunrise Movement at the University of Massachusetts dropped a 40 ft banner off the campus parking garage, which led to their registered student organization (RSO) status being frozen. As of Jan. 29, 2026, their status has been unfrozen with the help of the Student Government Association President Michael Borowski.
Sunrise leadership received an email from their advisor, Lindsay Taylor, that they had received three accountability points for their banner demonstration. Combined with the three points they received for their Nov. 7 walkout, their RSO status was frozen.
All RSOs are required to follow the established student organization (ESO) handbook. When an organization fails to abide by the guidelines, they recieve accountability points.
Once an RSO accrues six accountability points, they are frozen and can only be unfrozen “through various assignments from your [student engagement and leadership (SEL)] advisor,” according to the established student organization (ESO) handbook.
The Sunrise Movement is an RSO primarily focused on advocating for environmental change but they also plan demonstrations aimed at bettering student life. Having their status frozen meant the organization was unable to book space on campus, table, recruit new members, plan events or access their funding.
Maya Rao, Sunrise’s organizing coordinator and a junior natural resources conservation and forestry major, said Sunrise received accountability points for not following postering guidelines, advertising an event not registered on Campus Pulse and not giving three days’ notice of their protest.
Following the freeze, Taylor instructed the group to write a paper explaining why they protested and how they plan to demonstrate within ESO guidelines next time.
Hannah Markelz, Sunrise’s campaigns coordinator and junior environmental science major said they planned to write the paper and were going to explain why “we can’t [protest] within your guidelines because that’s not protest by our values.”
“We thought that this was ridiculous, because protest, should not be something you have to ask for. Protest, by its very nature, and for free speech is something that you just need to do … If you’re getting permission, if you’re, working with people you’re approaching protesting against, it’s not really disruptive,” Joshua Rand, hub delegate for Sunrise and a sophomore political science and Japanese major, said.
Before Sunrise wrote the paper, they released an Instagram post on Jan. 2 outlining their frozen status and why they disagreed with the decision the Student Organization Resource Center (SORC) and their advisor had made.
The SGA President, Michael Borowski, saw the post and said the situation didn’t seem right.
Rand and Rao said that Borowski was the one who “started the necessary conversations” to get their status unfrozen.
Before serving as President, Borowski was a student senator on the undergraduate registry oversight committee, where he looked over RSO procedures. Borowski ran for president on a platform of RSO reform, aiming to make the RSO budget process easier and shift how SGA interacts with RSOs.
“I had a couple questions. So, the first thing I did I reached out to Sunrise, and I was like, just, I want to know the lay down. Just tell me everything from your perspective, and I’ll see if everything’s up to code,” Borowski said. “After that, I sent a couple informational questions to the administrative powers at be just to get the full story.”
Borowski said that he got consultations from the Student Legal Services office, the SGA advisor, the Dean of Students office, the SORC, Student Affairs and Campus Life (SACL) and “as many stakeholders as possible, because I wanted to make sure I had all the facts straight.”
The ESO handbook is managed by SORC, with the SGA expected to be “consulted on it,” as Borowski explained.
“I had an issue with the way that policy was set up, and I guess this was the inciting incident to bring those policies to the forefront. So it could have been a similar situation happening to the math team or lettuce club, and I would have done the same thing,” Borowski said.
Borowski said, “The call to unfreeze Sunrise was made by myself. I sent an email to the SORC, basically explaining my reasoning, why this was going to happen, what the next steps looked like. And then from there, it was just a couple meetings with SEL stakeholders, Sunrise people and the SORC to kind of iron out the specifics of why, how and next steps forward.”
On Feb. 29, Sunrise leadership met with several members of the administration, including Christopher Blakely, the assistant vice chancellor for SEL, Taylor and Ciara Rodriguez, assistant director of student organizational development.
At the end of the meeting, Sunrise was reinstated as an RSO without having to write a paper. Despite this decision, Rao and Rand felt Sunrise was still under scrutiny from administrators.
“We were sort of informed that there would be, like a bit of a no-strings-attached situation, and that we would be free to continue as an RSO,” Rao said. “But we quickly came to learn that it wasn’t necessarily the case.”
Rao explained that they were encouraged to maintain “continuous open communication” with their advisor, specifically when planning demonstrations or events.
“We’ve also observed some very close monitoring of like any events we advertise, our social media accounts, our presence on campus,” Rao said. “I suppose it’s like the best they can provide, but fundamentally, we are not being provided the same freedom as other RSOs on campus.”
Rand added that administrators “emphasize that these are rules that everyone must abide by, but in practice, not everyone is subject to the same degree of scrutiny that Sunrise is placed under because they know that we have done actions that have caused quite a stir in the past.”
Emily Gest, the associate vice chancellor for news and media relations at UMass said in a statement, “Sunrise’s temporary freeze resulted solely from repeated violations of the university’s policies related to the reservation of event space on campus by student organizations. It had nothing to do with speech, protest, or advocacy.”
“Like all Registered Student Organizations (RSOs), Sunrise is required to follow student government policies to access shared campus resources, including reserving event space,” Gest said.
Gest added that freezes are often used as an educational action to help address policy violations and are a standard action that has no connection to the mission of the RSO.
Rand said they understand the need for guidelines and rules but advocated for a more transparent process with RSOs.
The points Sunrise received for the banner drop aren’t listed under the accountability points section of the handbook, Nate Dinh, social lead for Sunrise and senior environmental science major said. He added that the whole system “isn’t great” and echoed the need for more transparency.
Rao called the ESO handbook a “very unprofessional Canva document,” and Rand mentioned that since it’s a Canva document, it can be changed at any time. Both said it’s necessary to have a permanent document with a record of changes.
Borowski said the freezing of Sunrise has empowered him to keep working on RSO reforms.
“I think we see this in a lot of the systems being used for student groups and student organizations at UMass. They’re a little antiquated. They’re not optimized, and they are built for a UMass which no longer exists,” Borowski said.
Rand said Sunrise was grateful to see Borowski’s involvement and said throughout the process, there was “a really clear and genuine want to help and support student organizing rights and that’s really exciting.”
Before their status was unfrozen, Markelz said the club would keep advocating and doing demonstrations, no matter their status.
“Truthfully, we’re going to do what we’re going to do, regardless if we have a status or not, and we have allies that will support us through,” Markelz said.
“So, it’s business as usual on our end, but still just being mindful that the administration is still looking over our shoulder and being very careful about that as well,” Rao said.
Alexandra Hill can be reached at [email protected].
