The University of Chicago has suspended and evicted an Arab student who was arrested at a pro-Palestinian campus demonstration earlier this month, according to an attorney representing the student.
The student, who asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, does not have family in the state and has nowhere else to live, according to his attorney. University officials said they cannot comment on individual student disciplinary cases.
Megan Porter, the student’s lawyer, said two university deans and two campus police officers came to the student’s dorm room two days ago, on Monday, Oct. 21, to evict him. Porter said that, in a letter to the student, campus officials said they had been notified of his arrest during an Oct. 11 protest and placed him on an involuntary leave of absence from the university.
“They gave him a couple of minutes to pack up a backpack with the things that he could take, and said that he could arrange at another date to come and pack the rest of his things,” Porter said. “But the letter also told him that if he was back on campus without the explicit permission of the deans, then he would be subject to arrest. So in a matter of a little over an hour, he was suddenly out of his dorm … [with] nowhere to go.”
When asked about the student’s eviction and suspension, UChicago spokesperson Jeremy Manier said in an email, “The University does not release information about individual student disciplinary matters, in keeping with federal privacy laws.”
Porter said the university should have waited to determine the credibility of the allegations against her client before taking disciplinary action.
“It is really striking that the university, I think, would jump the gun and impose this kind of sanction when there’s no conviction, there’s no finding of guilt, and there’s no sentencing from a criminal system,” Porter said. “Deans are only able to impose an involuntary leave at this early stage if a student is considered a threat to the safety and security of the people on campus and the property on campus. There’s no reason to think the student is in any way a threat to anybody.”
Two UChicago students and an alumnus were arrested at an Oct. 11 campus protest of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, according to a university statement, one for alleged criminal damage and the two others for alleged battery of police officers.
During the demonstration, protesters blocked off access to one side of the campus quad with a bike lock and threw paint on a sculpture memorializing the university’s contribution to the development of the atomic bomb.
Then, according to the university’s student newspaper, the Maroon, police officers chased, tackled and detained a protester in a patrol car as other protesters tried to intervene. According to Maroon reporters who were on the scene, police used pepper spray and batons, and protesters damaged campus police cars and kicked at least one officer.
In a statement released after the protest, UChicago officials said, “The University of Chicago is fundamentally committed to upholding the rights of protesters to express their views on any issue. At the same time, University policies make it clear that cannot jeopardize public safety, disrupt the University’s operations, or involve unlawful activity.”
The university is one of a few local institutions that recently revised its policies on free speech to include a ban on overnight encampments and time restrictions on the use of amplified sound.
“The university, by its own policy, has for a long time touted its commitment to free speech,” Porter said. “But … when the university is being asked to actually take that theory … that it’s committed to and put it into practice, to uphold student speech protections, it just fails again and again, and it fails specifically over the last year with respect to Palestinian advocates.”