Nathaniel Rodwell-Simon

Protesters wave Palestinian flags during the encampment.

Five members of the Class of 2024—Youssef Hasweh, Rayna Acha, Kelly Hui, Andrew Basta, and Michelle Ward—had their degrees withheld during graduation as part of disciplinary proceedings related to pro-Palestine protests on campus. By the beginning of August, all of those students had received their degrees.

When and how did the University notify students that their degrees were being withheld?

As the Maroon reported in May, the five students had their degrees withheld by the University due to pending internal University disciplinary proceedings for “disruptive conduct” related to pro-Palestine protests, as outlined in University Statute 21. Six non-graduating students also faced disciplinary consequences for alleged participation in the pro-Palestine encampment.

By the end of July, four of the graduating students had received their degrees, and the disciplinary proceedings against non-graduating students related to participation in the encampment had been dismissed, according to a source familiar with the proceedings.

After her hearings concluded in early August, Michelle Ward was the last Class of 2024 student to receive her degree.

In an email sent by Division of the Humanities Dean of Students Shea Wolfe on May 31, Ward was informed that her degree in the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities (MAPH) would be withheld because she “may have been involved in a situation, which is currently being investigated by UCPD related to the IOP occupation on May 17.”

“[G]iven the fact that you will be involved in the Area Disciplinary System, the division has decided your degree will not be conferred until the resolution of this matter occurs,” the email continued.

Disciplinary matters for students in graduate degree programs like MAPH are managed by the division the student belongs to—the Division of the Humanities in this case—rather than the central disciplinary system managed by the Center for Student Integrity that handled the other students’ cases.

According to Hilary Strang, an associate senior instructional professor in the humanities, director of the MAPH program, and an informal advisor to Ward throughout her disciplinary process, this can leave students in short-term degree programs without the same level of connections to draw on for support.

“When something like this happens to a [master’s] student, they just are not connected into the various kinds of networks at the University that could potentially support them in the way that an undergraduate… or a doctoral student would be able to,” Strang told the Maroon in August after all disciplinary proceedings had concluded.

Although Wolfe’s May 31 email informed Ward that she would still be able to participate in “graduation related activities,” including attending her diploma ceremony, Ward chose not to attend because she would not have received her degree. The email was sent at 11:37 a.m., just five hours before the Division of the Humanities ceremony was scheduled to begin.

“I was really, to be honest, thankful that I didn’t have family in town for graduation, because it was really embarrassing. I mean, I can’t fathom telling a student hours before they’re supposed to be graduating that they’re not going to receive their degree,” Ward told the Maroon in mid-July before the proceedings against her and the other students had been resolved.

Ward also said that, as part of her disciplinary proceedings, she received pictures of herself in her apartment building lobby as part of an evidence folder.

“They sent me pictures of myself wearing a keffiyeh in my apartment lobby,” Ward said.

“I have no idea [how they obtained the pictures],” Ward continued. “I actually reached out to a professor, and the professor was very upset about it. She did some digging, and she said that they should not have access to security footage. So there would have to be some kind of… it would have to come from like a higher command. I don’t know how they obtained that footage.”

The Maroon independently verified that UCPD had video surveillance footage of Ward that was being used as part of her case, although it is unclear how the footage was obtained.

In a statement released to the Maroon on August 12, the University declined to comment on the specifics of Ward’s case or any of the others, citing federal privacy laws.

“The protests on campus in spring of 2024 brought about multiple formal complaints alleging that students violated University policies. In keeping with federal privacy laws, we do not release information about individual student disciplinary matters,” the University said.

Christopher Iacovetti, a Ph.D. student in the Divinity School, spoke to the Maroon in July about his experience as a non-graduating student facing disciplinary consequences. He received an email from Jeremy Inabinet, Associate Dean of Students in the Center for Student Integrity, on June 6.

In the email reviewed by the Maroon, Inabinet explains that his office received complaints that Iacovetti and “multiple other individuals disrupted the operations of the University by occupying space on the main quadrangle.” Iacovetti is a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UChicago, which is part of UChicago United for Palestine’s (UCUP) coalition of campus organizations.

Iacovetti felt that the complaints against him and the other students lacked specificity and engaged in what he calls a “notion of collective responsibility,” which he said was “precisely the notion that student organizers have been trying to impress upon the University of Chicago administration for months” through their protests.

“Yes, I am an encampment participant,” he wrote in a response to Inabinet also published on X (formerly Twitter), “but I am also (among other things) a citizen of the United States and an employee of the University of Chicago. If it is true, as your letter suggests, that my participation in the encampment renders me broadly responsible for all actions the encampment involved, then what does this imply about my responsibility in these other two cases?”

Why are some faculty alleging that the University violated disciplinary rules?

Several faculty members alleged that the University violated disciplinary rules by appointing an ad hoc chair, chemistry professor Bryan Dickenson, to the faculty disciplinary committee overseeing encampment cases without consulting the existing chairs.

At a Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) press conference on May 31, Denis Hirschfeldt, a professor in the Department of Mathematics and a member of the Council of the Faculty Senate when the current rules were adopted in 2017, raised concerns about what he saw as University leadership’s interference in the proceedings.

“For the provost to suddenly appoint a new chair once she already knows how the complaints against the students arose and what the political issues are is clear interference and a massive conflict of interest,” he said.

Hirschfeldt spoke to the Maroon after the press conference to explain the traditional course of disciplinary action and how the University has allegedly violated it. He referred to the Picker Report, a document containing rules for a system to handle disruptive conduct sensitive to freedom of expression. These rules were approved by the Council of the Faculty in 2017.

“The rules give the faculty chairs [of the Disciplinary Committee on Disruptive Conduct] the exclusive rights to decide—once there is a complaint against a student who’s about to graduate, they have exclusive rights to decide whether that student is going to be allowed to graduate or not,” he said.

In this case, “The provost did not talk to the spokesperson of the Committee of the Council, who is our head of faculty governance and who the provost is supposed to, according to the rules, consult with in making determinations of who should be in the [disciplinary] committee. Instead, the provost just nominated another member of the committee to be a chair for this case, and that member of the committee is the one who made this decision [to withhold degrees],” Hirschfeldt said.

Hirschfeldt believes that the appointment of an ad hoc chair to the committee was done by the University to begin the disciplinary process before graduation, which would allow degrees to be withheld.

“They wanted to make sure that they actually started the process because it is true that as soon as the process starts, the rules do allow for students to be held back from graduation, although again, only if the faculty chairs choose,” he said.

According to the committee rules, “If a complaint of disruptive conduct against a student who has applied for graduation has been brought to the attention of the Associate Dean of Students in the University, Center for Student Integrity but by the date of graduation the matter has not yet been resolved informally or a Committee has not yet convened, the Faculty Chair has the discretion and authority to decide whether the respondent may receive the degree and/or participate in convocation.”

In the August 12 statement, the University also outlined the process of its disciplinary system.

“The University adheres to a well-defined, faculty-led Disciplinary System for Disruptive Conduct that was developed and approved by the Council of the University Senate in 2017,” the University wrote. “Once a formal complaint is received, evidence is gathered and assessed, and the Disciplinary Committee faculty lead has the authority to refer the matter to the Standing Disciplinary Committee on Disruptive Conduct to determine if policies have been violated, or to dismiss a case and not advance it further through the disciplinary process.”

“As part of this process, degrees may be withheld until the case is resolved. Degrees can be conferred expeditiously after a case is dismissed,” the statement concluded.

Has this happened before? 

Although student protesters have faced University disciplinary consequences before, the Maroon did not find any records of previous students having their degrees withheld for protest actions. However, 42 students were expelled and 81 were suspended for as many as six quarters for participation in anti-Vietnam War protests in 1969, just two years after the publication of the Kalven Report and months before the implementation of the All-University Disciplinary System.

In 2016, then-University Student Government president Tyler Kissinger (A.B. ’16) was placed on disciplinary probation after he used his expanded building access to allow protesters into Levi Hall for a sit-in. Kissinger, however, was allowed to graduate, and none of the other protesters were arrested. The process that resulted in the current Disciplinary System for Disruptive Conduct was initiated just weeks after the events of 2016, and the committee that established the new disciplinary system explicitly considered the sit-in and surrounding events as part of their deliberations.

Other student-led protests, like the 2020 sit-in at University of Chicago Police Department  headquarters, also ended without arrests, while a string of protests at University of Chicago Medical Centers between 2010 and 2014 resulted in the arrests of at least four individuals, including one graduate student.

How long does the resolution of disciplinary processes take?

There is no concrete timeline for how long deliberation processes take once hearings begin, but the Center for Student Integrity must provide both the complainant and respondent with formal written notification of the outcome within seven days of the conclusion of deliberations, according to the disciplinary system’s rules.

By August 7, the disciplinary proceedings against all 11 students had been resolved, and the five graduating students had received their degrees.

Despite what she sees as a positive outcome for all of the students who went through the disciplinary process, Strang still has concerns about the system.

“Everything that has happened this past spring—and particularly with these disciplinary cases—has led many people to ask questions about how disciplinary matters are happening at the University and what is the involvement of the police in those matters,” Strang said. “And I think that those questions are going to go on.”

These concerns are similar to those expressed by Genevieve Lakier, a professor in the Law School, at the May 31 FJP press conference.

“It is very hard to see how denying these students their diplomas is necessary to the functioning of the University, or at all consistent with this University’s commitment to freedom of speech,” Lakier said. “The message this sends to students is that participating in non-violent protests… may result in the loss of their diplomas. It is difficult to understand this message as anything other than punishment for the content of the students’ speech, for their viewpoints.”

Emma Janssen contributed to reporting.