Open Letter to the Office of Dean of Students

By Trinity Faculty Coalition for Justice in Palestine

The Trinity Faculty Coalition for Justice in Palestine (TCJP) condemns the administration’s effort to intimidate students by threatening disciplinary hearings and admonitions for their peaceful protest on Friday, Oct. 18. This protest was a principled call from students who are in alignment with international bodies such as the International Court of Justice, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, all of which have recognized the escalating genocide in Palestine. During the protest on Friday, the students assembled to exercise their rights and to demand that Trinity divest from companies invested in genocide, apartheid and environmental harm. The Trinity Faculty Coalition for Justice in Palestine stands in solidarity with our courageous students. 

We are disheartened to learn that students are being threatened by a vague, arbitrary and rushed disciplinary process and handed “admonitions” for their alleged participation in this peaceful assembly. Punishing students for chanting and singing freedom songs outside a Trustee dinner is an exceptional and harsh interpretation of vague points in the Student Handbook’s Social Code. The Student Handbook defines admonitions as a “formal warning of serious blame” and elaborates that “further misconduct may be treated with more serious sanctions” (110). We thus recognize that these admonitions may exert a chilling force on students’ future speech and action. If students can be admonished for assembling outside a Trustees’ dinner, who is to say they will not face arbitrary and distorted interpretations of College policies and draconian punishment for exercising other rights in the future?

We are alarmed by the unclear protocol used to identify accused students. The sanctioned students have not been told how their specific, individual behavior that evening was in violation of policies. At least one student who was not at the event received a notice for violating College policies. We are also alarmed that these Administrative Resolution Processes are proceeding out of step with College policies as documented in the Student Handbook. In particular: (i) the demand that students respond to requests for meetings within 24 hours and (ii) the assertion that hearings will be conducted in students’ absence are not part of the Administrative Resolution Process outlined in the Handbook.^[1] It is impermissible that the administration create policies ad hoc to corral students into hearings. Modifications to procedures cannot “present [any] advantage in favor of, or any bias against any party to the complaint” (106), but these changes clearly disadvantage students, who are being left with little time to prepare, no specific knowledge of the evidence against them and scrambling to find faculty accompaniment.

Instead of pursuing this punitive course of action, the administration and trustees could choose to interpret the Student Handbook to assert that students’ peaceful assembly was entirely acceptable and, moreover, laudable. In fact, the administration could choose to interpret the students’ protest as in alignment with Trinity College’s mission to “prepare students to be bold, independent thinkers who lead transformative lives.” The administration could choose to interpret students’ peaceful protest as “guidedby principles of care, honesty, integrity, and civility” and strengthening the “bonds that shape our community and hold it together,” as stated in the preamble to the Student Handbook. Indeed, what could be more grounded in care, honesty and integrity than students demanding that our community’s resources not be used to harm other humans and the planet?

We thus respectfully request that the administration drop the admonitions, make it clear that students have the right to peacefully protest without the fear of retaliation and applaud our students for taking bold action. We also expect that the Board of Trustees engage the students in good faith concerning their demands that Trinity College divest from apartheid, genocide, militarism and ecological harm. 

— The Trinity Faculty Coalition for Justice in Palestine

^[1]These appear to be adaptations of the procedure for Honor Code violations, but the students are not accused of violating the Honor Code. The procedure for Honor Code violations, however, is more generous than students were granted, specifying that students have 48 hours to respond to complaints.