Journalist pulled by shoulder while documenting protest at Tennessee Capitol

Independent journalist Jordyn Gualdani was pulled roughly by sergeants-at-arms at the state capitol building in Nashville, Tennessee, while documenting a protest on March 26, 2025. Gualdani, a wheelchair user, said the incident was part of a pattern of discriminatory behavior from sergeants-at-arms at the Capitol.

The protest took place at a House Education Committee meeting on a controversial bill that would allow school boards in the state to refuse to enroll children living there without legal permission into K-12 public schools. Recent hearings on the bill, which committee members voted to advance, were met with multiple protests by community members, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Gualdani attended the March 26 hearing to report on the vote and a planned demonstration by community members in the hearing room.

He told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that as the vote began, protesters stood and began singing and chanting, at which point almost all of the journalists in the room went to the front of the room to document them.

Then, Gualdani said, the sergeants-at-arms began to push journalists to get them away from the protesters and toward the back of the room, in an unusual display of force. “This is not how demonstrations are typically handled,” he said.

“I was behind a reporter from a local station lining up a shot of activists being confronted when I was pulled backwards by my shoulder and told I needed to ‘get back,’” Gualdani told the Tracker. “If I had been sitting all the way back in my chair I would have tipped due to how my chair is balanced. Thankfully, I was leaning forward, which put my weight to the front of the chair.”

Gualdani added that his press pass was visible, but also that “most of the officials know I’m a journalist.”

Because he uses a wheelchair, “They typically try to force me to move by telling me I am a ‘fire hazard’ even though I am in the areas I should be and I am not in the way,” he said. “Tripods take up more room and are harder to move than I am.”

Seth Herald, a photojournalist on assignment for Reuters that day, also witnessed the sergeants-at-arms pushing journalists around the room during the hearing. He told the Tracker he was photographing the protesters at the front of the room when a sergeant-at-arms told him to stop and move to the back.

The chief sergeant-at-arms then tried to force Herald into the middle of the room, where he couldn’t find the space to move. When he told the officer that he was being prevented from doing his job as a journalist, the officer responded: “Well, I’m doing my job” and pushed Herald. The photojournalist told the Tracker the shove was out of frustration and that he didn't consider it an assault.

Eventually, Gualdani and Herald said, the sergeants-at-arms stopped pushing the journalists. “They did back off once it was clear we all would continue to do our jobs,” Gualdani said.

Gualdani and Herald told the Tracker that rules around journalists’ placement in hearing rooms at the Capitol have been erratic. “Members of the press are told, ‘Stay behind a specific point on the side walls’ one day and then told that we are limited to the back wall on other days,” Gualdani said.

Herald said that restrictions on journalists’ movements at the Capitol have seemed to increase. “Where a year ago we used to float around the committee room, they restrict us now to the side of the walls and the very back of the room and don’t let us move anywhere,” he said. “It almost feels intentional, like they’re making it uncomfortable. It’s shoulder to shoulder. You can’t do anything.”

Gualdani said he reported the more forceful response from law enforcement to the chief sergeant-at-arms. “He was dismissive, but agreed to talk with the sergeants under him,” Gualdani told the Tracker. “His excuse was that maybe they were trying to guide people and accidentally touched journalists.” But Gualdani and Herald both said the sergeants-at-arms seemed to be targeting the group of journalists to impede their access to the protesters.