Ninety UF faculty are urging the university to reverse the suspensions of six arrested pro-Palestinian student protesters in favor of lighter penalties previously recommended by the Student Conduct Committee.
UF Dean of Students Chris Summerlin issued the six protesters three- to four-year suspensions earlier this month, sidestepping Student Conduct Committee recommendations for academic probation or one- to three-year suspensions. Students who receive an academic suspension can’t enroll in classes at the university and aren’t allowed to graduate until the suspension is lifted, which requires an appeal to UF.
In a letter sent to Summerlin and other top UF officials July 19, 90 faculty called upon the university to follow the committee’s recommendations. The letter, provided to The Alligator by a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences professor who preferred to remain anonymous, said the university did not uphold the student honor code by not being fair and not respecting laws and regulations.
“It is clear that the University of Florida is bypassing its own policies and processes to issue these suspensions,” the letter read. “How can we expect students to follow this honor code if our administration and police department cannot do the same?”
Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) organized and sent the letter, but many professors who signed it were not members of the organization, according to the CLAS professor.
The professor also said some faculty were not comfortable signing even though they believed the suspensions handed down by UF were unfair due to an “atmosphere of intimidation.”
The letter was sent to Summerlin, outgoing UF President Ben Sasse, Vice President for Student Life Heather White and Interim President Kent Fuchs. All four officials have yet to respond to the letter, according to the professor.
University spokesperson Steve Orlando wrote in an email, “Students who break rules face consequences. UF clearly, patiently and repeatedly communicated existing rules to protesters and then the university enforced those rules — just like we said we would. The University of Florida upholds free speech and enforces the rules. We expect our students to act like adults and take responsibility for their actions."
The Retired Faculty of the University of Florida, representing about 250 retired faculty from UF and other higher institutions, sent its own letter to the university on July 19, according to Dr. Richard D’Alli, president of the organization.
“We do not understand why any further more egregious consequences were necessary beyond what [the] Student Conduct Committee recommended,” he said.
D’Alli said their organization took the letter sent out by FJP and made it more concise. He said the letter was sent to Sasse, White and Provost Scott Angle July 19, and to Fuchs July 20.
D’Alli said Fuchs thanked the organization for the letter, but did not comment further on its contents.
“The extremely harsh punishments meted out to the six UF students involved are, in our opinion, wholly unsuited to a top tier American public university,” the letter read. “We therefore call for the immediate reversal of these secondary, capricious, harsh and unjustified suspensions.”
The two letters join a third letter sent July 3 to Sasse, Summerlin and UF’s general counsel Amy Hass by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a non-profit civil liberties group dedicated to defending free speech in America.
In the letter, the foundation asked for the university to retract the three-year suspension for Keely Gliwa, who was set to graduate three days after she was arrested.
“As the Hearing Board concluded, Gliwa did not willfully engage in misconduct,” the letter read. “Punishing her as though she did suggests UF’s goal is not to hold students accountable for their own conduct — as [Sasse] recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal — but to deter peaceful protest.”
Contact Timothy Wang at twang@alligator.org. Follow him on X @timothyw_g
Timothy Wang is a junior journalism student and the Fall 2024 Santa Fe College Reporter. He was the University Administration reporter for Summer 2024. His hobbies include gaming or reading manga.
