Two Tulane University students are appealing the university’s decision to suspend them for participating in a protest that established a short-lived pro-Palestine encampment earlier this year.
Maya Sanchez and Rory Macdonald were among seven students disciplined by the university shortly after the protest began and police dismantled it. Sanchez and Macdonald, both seniors, had their interim suspensions upheld by Tulane in late August, following months of negotiation efforts led by students and professors to convince the school to grant amnesty to student protesters. Macdonald is also facing a misdemeanor trespassing charge related to the protest.
Of the other students who were suspended on an interim basis, one has graduated, another has transferred, two more ultimately received lesser sanctions, and one is deferring their case until the resolution of their criminal charge, according to members of Tulane and Loyola University’s chapters of Students for a Democratic Society.
Tulane’s SDS chapter, which the university administration also officially suspended in the spring, claims the university has falsely accused Sanchez and Macdonald of organizing and leading the encampment protest.
Michael Strecker, a spokesperson for Tulane, said federal law prohibits the university from discussing student educational records, including disciplinary actions.
“We fundamentally respect the right to protest. However, we do not tolerate behavior that violates university conduct policies,” Strecker said in a statement.
Macdonald, a member of the Tulane’s SDS who uses they/them pronouns, said they received the notice that the suspension had become permanent during a court appearance for their trespassing charge.
The short-lived encampment drew hundreds of people to Tulane’s campus for two days in late April to call for a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza and for Tulane to reveal its financial relationship with Israel. Protestors also wanted Tulane to end all business agreements with and investments in Israel or organizations that support the country.
In response to the protest, Tulane closed several campus buildings on April 30 and held classes that were to be in those buildings remotely.
Tulane SDS said in an Instagram post on August 28 that the university’s administration alleged that Macdonald and Sanchez led the encampment.
Macdonald denies this allegation. Sanchez declined to be interviewed for this story, citing fear of retaliation from the university.
Macdonald called the university’s evidence, which they said was photos of them at previous protests and wearing a t-shirt related to a local organization they are in, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, circumstantial. They said the university also used their arrest against them in the report.
They called the situation baffling.
“Why are they finding me responsible out of the hundreds of students that came to the encampment and participated?” Macdonald said.
Time to appeal
Tulane gives students the right to appeal misconduct charges on three grounds: procedural error, new and significant evidence and disproportionate sanctions, according to its website.
The university usually gives students five working days to appeal, but gave Macdonald ten days.
Macdonald said that they appealed about a week after being officially suspended in late August on the grounds of disproportionate sanctions. The university was supposed to reply in 10 working days, but has yet to respond, Macdonald said.
“The emphasis of my appeal was that my suspension is a political attack,” Macdonald said. “It’s not really based on any evidence that I was especially important to the encampment. Hundreds of students participated in the encampment across multiple days to make it happen.”
While their suspension is being appealed, Macdonald and Sanchez are only allowed on campus for class and, in Sanchez’s case, for an on-campus job.
Macdonald said that being suspended has been stressful and they won’t be able to afford to go to Tulane if they lose their appeal, as they’re on a scholarship that they stand to lose if the suspension is finalized.
“I don’t have $70,000 to give to Tulane. So any day now they can finalize my suspension, in which case I would be sort of de facto expelled,” they said.
Macdonald hopes the appeal will be granted. But they said that even if the university denies the appeal, that is not the end of their fight.
“If the university says they’re not going to divest, we’re not going to stop fighting,” Macdonald said. “I’m really looking forward to seeing what forms the struggle will take this semester .… We have a saying in SDS that we say: ‘Dare to struggle, dare to win.’ And I think what’s next is we’re going to keep on daring to struggle.”
Trial update: Not guilty
Macdonald is among 14 people who were charged for trespassing following the encampment. Two out of the 14 were Tulane students while five were Loyola students. Everyone who was arrested when the police shut down the encampment received some form of discipline or sanction from Tulane, according to Emily Ratner, an attorney who represented four of the people who were charged with trespassing.
Several groups calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, Tulane SDS, Jewish Voice for Peace New Orleans and Loyola New Orleans SDS among them, called on their supporters to rally and pack the courts for the defendants before the trial began.
A coalition of over 40 local organizations and individuals, including Voice of the Experienced and the Louisiana chapter of the National Lawyers’ Guild, signed a resolution sent to the press by New Orleans Stop Helping Israel’s Ports (NOSHIP) in support of those going on trial.
On Friday (Sept. 20), after hours of testimony during a roughly four-hour-long bench trial, Orleans Parish Criminal District Judge Benedict Willard found all 14 defendants not guilty of misdemeanor trespassing charges. Willard did not elaborate on his verdict.
After Willard’s verdict, defendants and their attorneys, along with groups supporting them, gathered outside the courthouse, where Macdonald led the crowd in a call-and-response chant.
Macdonald told Verite News that it was tough to know what to expect from the trial but that the verdict was the right decision. They said the experience has not deterred them from doing activist work in the pro-Palestine movement.
“I think Judge Willard saw all the people that we brought out, and he’s been seeing the people and the press that we’ve been bringing out,” Macdonald said. “I think he knew that there was a big crowd, and that people would see and would remember if he caves to what Tulane wanted over the truth.”
This story was updated on Friday, Sept. 20 to include details from the trial.
Correction: An earlier version of this article said that not everyone who was arrested at the Tulane encampment faced discipline from the university. Everyone who was arrested received some form of discipline or sanction from the university.
This article first appeared on Verite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Source: This story was originally published by Verite News, Arielle Robinson
Photo by Emily Ranquist: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photography-of-people-graduating-1205651/
