Gallaudet University will go ahead with disciplinary action against more than 100 protesters whose demonstrations led to the removal of the incoming president two months before she was to start.
The board of trustees of the nation’s most prominent school for the deaf had placed a monthlong freeze on punishing the 133 protesters who were arrested in October, but agreed this week to move forward with the school’s disciplinary process.
“The board concluded that the judicial process has been conducted according to university policies, that these matters are appropriately under the jurisdiction of the student judicial system, and that the judicial process should move forward,” the board said in a released statement.
Board Chairwoman Pamela Holmes told The Examiner Friday that she believes the disciplinary action will be handed out fairly.
Protesters face a range of sanctions from writing a paper to expulsion. Some protesters allege that they lost their jobs as student advisers and student housing.
Many protesters are hoping new interim President Robert Davila will intervene, but Davila said in an online interview Thursday “he was not privy to the issue and the matter is being dealt with by the board of trustees as a matter of policy.”
Lawyers representing the group of protesters asked university officials to dismiss thesanctions and blamed the university security for upsetting what it called a peaceful sit-in.
Imposing sanctions would accomplish nothing and only impede the reconciliation of a divided campus, said attorney Edward Correia.
One of the students’ demands was that the university would not punish the protesters. Protest leaders could not be reached Friday.
Campus protesters closed down the campus, set up a tent city and went on a hunger strike in their opposition to Jane Fernandes. One hundred thirty-three protesters who refused to move from blocking an entrance were arrested by D.C. police.
