College protesters seek amnesty to keep arrests and suspensions from trailing them

Maryam Alwan thought the worst was over after New York police in riot gear arrested her and other protesters on the campus of Columbia University, loaded them onto buses and held them in custody for hours.

But the next evening, the college junior received an email from the college. Alwan and other students were suspended following their arrests in the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” a tactic that colleges across the country have deployed to calm growing campus protests against the war between Israel and Hamas.

The plight of the students has become a central part of the protests, with students and a growing number of teachers demanding their amnesty. The question is whether universities and law enforcement will approve the charges and forgo other consequences, or whether the suspensions and legal filings will follow students into their adult lives.

The terms of the suspensions vary from campus to campus. At Columbia and its affiliated Barnard College for Women, Alwan and dozens of others were arrested on April 18 and immediately barred from campus and classes, unable to attend in person or virtually, and banned from dining halls.

Questions remain about their academic future. Can they take final exams? What about financial aid? Graduation? Columbia says the outcomes will be decided at disciplinary hearings, but Alwan says she has not been given a date.

“This feels very dystopian,” says Alwan, a major student in comparative literature and social sciences.

What started in Columbia has turned into a nationwide confrontation between students and administrators over anti-war protests and the limits of free speech. In the past 10 days, hundreds of students have been arrested, suspended, placed on probation and, in rare cases, expelled from colleges including Yale University, the University of Southern California, Vanderbilt University and the University of Minnesota.

Barnard, a women’s liberal arts college in Columbia, has suspended more than 50 students arrested on April 18 and evicted them from campus housing, according to interviews with students and reporting from the campus newspaper Columbia Spectator, which obtained internal campus documents .

On Friday, Barnard announced it had reached agreements to restore access to campus for “almost all.” A statement from the college did not specify the number but said all students whose suspensions were lifted had agreed to follow the university’s rules and in some cases were placed on probation.

However, on the night of the arrests, Barnard student Maryam Iqbal posted a screenshot on the social media platform

“You have 15 minutes to gather what you need,” the email read.

More than 100 Barnard and Columbia faculty members organized a “Rally to Support Our Students” last week, condemning the student arrests and demanding the suspensions be lifted.

Columbia is still pushing to remove the tent camp on the campus’ main lawn, where the graduation ceremony will take place on May 15. The students have demanded that the school cut ties with Israeli-affiliated companies and guarantee amnesty for students and teachers arrested or punished in connection with the protests.

Discussions with the student protesters continue, said Ben Chang, a Columbia spokesman. “We have our demands; they have theirs,” he said.

For international students who face suspension, there is the added fear of losing their visas, said Radhika Sainath, an attorney with Palestine Legal, who helped a group of Columbia students file a federal civil rights complaint against the school on Thursday. It accuses Columbia of not doing enough to address discrimination against Palestinian students.

“The level of punishment is not even just draconian, it feels like excessive insensitivity,” Sainath said.

Last week, more than forty students were arrested during a Yale demonstration, including senior Craig Birckhead-Morton. He will graduate on May 20, but says the university has not yet told him whether his case will be referred to a disciplinary committee. He worries about whether he will receive a degree and whether his admission to Columbia Graduate School could be in jeopardy.

“The school has done its best to ignore us and not tell us what happens next,” said Birckhead-Morton, a history student.

Across the country, university administrators have struggled 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 left more than 34,000 dead.

May’s commencement ceremonies could increase pressure for clear demonstrations. University officials say arrests and suspensions are a last resort, and they provide ample advance warning to clear protest areas.

Vanderbilt University in Tennessee has issued the only student expulsion linked to protesting the Israeli-Hamas conflict, according to the Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding. More than two dozen students occupied the university chancellor’s office for hours on March 26, prompting the university to call police and arrest several protesters. Vanderbilt subsequently issued three expulsions, one suspension and placed 22 protesters on probation.

In an open letter to Chancellor Daniel Diermeier, more than 150 Vanderbilt professors criticized the university’s crackdown as “excessive and punitive.”

Freshman Jack Petocz, 19, one of those banned, will be allowed to take classes while he appeals. He has been kicked out of his dorm and lives off campus.

Petocz said protesting in high school helped him get into Vanderbilt and secure a scholarship for activists and organizers. His college essay was about organizing strikes in rural Florida to oppose Governor Ron DeSantis’ anti-LGBTQ policies.

“Vanderbilt seemed to love that,” Petocz said. “Unfortunately, the buck stops when you start advocating for Palestinian liberation.”

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