Nine University of Texas at Dallas students and recent graduates said Tuesday they're challenging the school’s proposed academic discipline after they were arrested during a campus encampment protesting the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in May.
Organizers from Palestinian Youth Movement Dallas and Students for Justice in Palestine at UTD condemned the university for its response to the pro-Palestinian protests and encampment on campus May 1.
"The truth is that UTD is attempting to stifle students’ power," said Mariam Lafi, a sophom*ore studying neuroscience. "They treat students as mere attendees of class, as customers paying for degrees rather than full participants in the academic community."
Wednesday marks 10 months since the beginning of the war in Gaza, which began after a Hamas-led attack against Israel that killed roughly 1,200 people Oct. 7. Palestinian authorities say more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed.
Lafi and others renewed their calls for the university to divest from weapons manufacturers with ties to the war and asked the Collin County District Attorney to drop criminal charges against the arrestees.
UTD police and other local law enforcement arrested 21 protestors — a group organizers call "the UTD 21" — for criminal trespass after the administration said it told protesters to take down the encampment or face legal and university consequences. Students, professors, alumni and individuals not associated with the university were booked into Collin County Jail May 1.
All were released on bond the next day but were banned from campus except for class and class-related activities or, in the professors’ cases, work and work-related activities. Those criminal cases are pending.
Mousa Najjar, one of the initial arrestees, said he was arrested again after his graduation in May when he held up a Palestinian flag that said “divest from death” as he walked the stage.
"We understand that this arrest is a part of a broader attempt to repress student movement for demanding a liberated Palestine and confronting their universities for their complicity in the genocide on Gaza," he said.
Juan Salinas II
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KERA
According to a letter from administration one student shared with KERA News, UTD is formally accusing the nine students and graduates of obstructing access to institutional facilities or grounds, disruptive conduct and failing to comply with orders from UTD officials.
In a statement to KERA News, a UTD spokesperson said encampments are not permitted under the university's free speech policy or any other UT system rule.
"We strongly uphold students’ rights to protest," the statement reads. "However, demonstrations must adhere to policies governing assembly on campus."
UTD can't comment on student or faculty disciplinary proceedings, the spokesperson said.
The university is proposing the six current students be put on deferred suspension, students said. According to UTD’s Student Code of Conduct, that means students won’t be suspended from campus unless they violate any other school rules before they graduate.
“Denial of degree” is an unexplained sanction in the school’s code of conduct. Students said UTD informed the three recent graduates that as punishment for allegedly breaking campus rules, the university may deny that they have graduated to outside parties until Dec. 13.
UTD informed students and recent graduates of the planned discipline at meetings last month. Administration gave students three options, students said: accept responsibility for breaking the school’s code of conduct and accept their punishment, accept responsibility and appeal their punishment or dispute both.
The group of nine chose to dispute the allegations and their punishments, said Nouran Abusaad, a graduate health care management student. That choice begins the disciplinary hearing process in front of a hearing officer or panel. Students and the dean of students can present opening arguments, evidence and witnesses.
The group of nine is waiting on the university to schedule those hearings as the start of classes approaches on Aug. 19. But UTD has not presented students with any evidence protesters broke campus rules, Abusaad said, and students have already been presumed responsible for code of conduct violations.
"If you’ve already been found responsible by the university and you’re choosing to challenge that, that’s like appealing a finding of guilt before you’ve had a chance to prove yourself of innocence," Abusaad said.
Students at the University of Texas at Austin faced similar discipline after an on-campus protest in April. However, all charges were dropped against those protesters arrested on UT Austin’s campus, and a university committee released a report last week stating the university violated its own rules in calling police to respond to the protests.
"The UT Austin report tells us what the students have been saying," Abusaad said. "And this, I guess, is a moment where it’s really, really important that we listen to the students and their demands for divestment."
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