Mariam Alwan thought the worst was over after New York City police in riot gear arrested her and other protesters on the Columbia University campus, put them on a bus and detained them for several hours. .
However, the next evening, the university junior received an email from the university.
Alwan and other students had been suspended from school after being arrested at a “Gaza solidarity encampment.” The encampments are a tactic deployed by universities across the country to quell growing campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war.
The plight of students has been at the center of protests, with a growing number of students and faculty calling for amnesty. The question is whether the university and law enforcement will exonerate the student and withhold any other consequences, or whether the suspension and legal record will continue into the student’s adult life.
Suspension conditions vary by campus.
At Columbia University and its affiliated women’s college, Barnard College, Alwan and dozens of others were arrested on April 18 and immediately banned from campus and classes, unable to attend in-person or virtually, and barred from the cafeteria. It was done.
Questions still remain about their academic future. Can they take the final exam? What about financial aid? graduation? Columbia has said the outcome will be determined at a disciplinary hearing, but Alwan says no date has been given.
“This feels very dystopian,” says Alwan, a comparative literature and society major.
What began at Columbia University escalated into a nationwide showdown between students and administrators over anti-war protests and restrictions on free speech.
In the past 10 days, hundreds of students have been arrested, suspended, placed on probation, and in rare cases expelled from universities including Yale University, the University of Southern California, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Minnesota. .
Barnard College, Columbia University’s women’s liberal arts college, arrested more than 50 students on April 18, according to a report in the Columbia Spectator campus newspaper, which obtained interviews with students and internal campus documents. He was suspended from school and kicked out of campus housing.
Barnard announced Friday that an agreement had been reached to restore access to campus for “substantially everyone.” The university statement did not specify the number of students, but said all students whose suspensions were lifted agreed to abide by university rules and, in some cases, were placed on probation.
But on the night of her arrest, Barnard College student Mariam Iqbal… Posted a screenshot on social media platform X About the dean’s email telling her she could temporarily return to a room with campus security before she was kicked out.
The email said, “Please allow 15 minutes to gather what you need.”
More than 100 faculty members from Barnard College and Columbia University held a “Student Support Rally” last week to denounce the students’ arrests and demand that their suspensions be lifted.
Columbia University is still in the process of clearing tent encampments on the campus’ main lawn, where graduation ceremonies are scheduled to be held on May 15th.
Students are demanding that the school sever ties with Israeli-affiliated companies and secure amnesty for students and faculty who have been arrested or disciplined in connection with the protests.
“Consultations with student demonstrators continue,” Columbia University spokesman Ben Chan said. “We have demands. They have theirs,” he said.
Radhika Sainat, a lawyer with the Palestine Legal Affairs Bureau who helped a group of Columbia University students file a federal civil rights lawsuit against the school on Thursday, said that for international students facing suspension, the added risk of losing their visas He said there was fear.
Columbia University has been accused of not doing enough to address discrimination against Palestinian students.
“I feel that the level of punishment is not only harsh but also far too ruthless,” Sainas said.
More than 40 students were arrested at a demonstration at Yale University last week, including senior Craig Birkhead Morton. He is scheduled to graduate on May 20, but the university said he has not yet been told whether his case will be referred to a disciplinary committee.
He worries about whether he will receive his diploma and whether his admission to graduate school at Columbia University will be in jeopardy.
“The school did its best to ignore us and not tell us what was going to happen next,” said Birkhead Morton, a history major.
University administrators across the country are struggling to balance free speech and inclusivity. Some demonstrations included hate speech, anti-Semitic threats or support for Hamas, the group that attacked Israel on October 7 and sparked a war in Gaza that has killed more than 34,000 people. It is included.
Graduation ceremonies in May will increase pressure to exclude demonstrators.
University officials said arrests and suspensions are a last resort and that they are giving sufficient advance warning to clear protest areas.
Vanderbilt University in Tennessee has issued what appears to be the only student expulsion related to protests over the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to the Institute for Middle East Understanding.
On March 26, more than 20 students occupied the university president’s office for several hours, and the university summoned police and arrested several protesters. Vanderbilt subsequently issued three expulsions, one suspension, and placed 22 protesters on probation.
More than 150 professors at Vanderbilt University criticized the university’s crackdown as “excessive and punitive” in an open letter to President Daniel Diermeier.
One of those expelled, 19-year-old freshman Jack Petouche, has been allowed to attend classes while he appeals. He was kicked out of his dorm and lives off campus.
Petosh said her high school protests helped her get into Vanderbilt and win a Merit Scholarship for Activists and Organizers. His college essay was about organizing a walkout in rural Florida to protest Gov. Ron DeSantis’ anti-LGBTQ policies.
“Mr. Vanderbilt seemed to like it,” Petsch said. “Unfortunately, once you start advocating for the liberation of Palestine, the money stops.”
