Pro-Palestine Students Speak Out Against Case Western Reserve University’s Encampment Punishments

This weekend, in a hall at Case Western Reserve University, some 2,700 undergraduates and graduates will don their black caps and tasseled gowns and walk across the graduation stage.

And 53 might not, according to students. (That number is just three, according the school.)

Earlier in the week, on Monday, several dozen students who were involved with the pro-Palestine encampment on the Kelvin Smith Library green were delivered emails from Case’s Office of Student Conduct effectively banning them from campus activity. And, most direly, from not receiving their diplomas as investigations from the office continue.

As those punished students, deemed personas non grata by Case admins, pursue remedy through the university’s conduct process, a handful of them gathered on the second floor of the nearby MLK branch of the Cleveland Public Library to call out what they see as Case President Eric Kaler’s mishandling of what was a peaceful protest.

The six present, members of the Palestine Task Force, spoke passionately about what Kaler, unlike more progressive university chiefs around the country, has not seemed to get.

“Case Western has retaliated against their students for exercising their right to academic freedom and inflicted disproportionate punishment on their students,” Faten Odeh, the director of the Cleveland chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, told the crowd, “simply because they disagree with them that an ongoing genocide should not be paid and funded with their tuition”

The Task Force, which worked with Students for Justice for Palestine members to erect a tent village in early May, has been placing increasing pressure on CWRU to both disclose and divest in any financial stakes in Israel-owned companies.

Protesters at colleges around the world have used encampments and graffiti with varying levels of success. At Trinity College in Dublin, university admins agreed not to renew any investments with Israeli ties next March. And on Wednesday, the Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine encampment disbanded after failing to earn a divestment commitment from university admins.

At Case, what protesters see as a communication breakdown between them and Kaler has led to, what students said on Friday, a misjudging of their original goal to spotlight war casualties. A 180 from what, Task Force members and Case senior Yousef Khalaf said, the college’s guiding mission.

“They accepted us because they knew that we stand for these ideas,” he said. “They knew that we’re willing to fight for what we believe in, and we’re willing to pursue these different ideas and have dialogue and do revolutionary things.

“And now we’re being punished for those same things.”

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Mark Oprea

Jad Oglesby, a senior and former head of Case’s Students for Justice for Palestine, speaking on Friday with the five other Task Force affiliates.

Since February, Case Western officials have long maintained a sense of openness regarding freedom of expression on campus, and has categorized some of the protesters’ behavior—some Free Palestine chants, or “YOU CAN’T HIDE” painted on Eldred Hall—as “threatening” or “hateful.”

It’s why, along with an encampment on Case property, 53 students received notices of interim suspension. Yet, according to a statement on Friday, Case’s Office of Student conduct has “moved expeditiously” to hurry those punished through the hearing process in time for graduation.

As of Friday’s press conference, only 12 were in midst of the conduct procedure; and just three students, the university said, are to be banned from commencement. (I don’t know where they’re getting that number from,” law graduate Mike Grimm told press.)

“All others have been permitted to take part in their degree-conferral ceremonies,” the statement read, “among other commencement-related activities. Decisions on the awarding of degrees will be made once the conduct process is complete.”

But what about after graduation? Many of the anxieties expressed by Task Force affiliates dealt with issues extending past May—from securing a spot on a scheduled bar exam to starting internships or locking down hoped-for jobs.

Several protesters, including Jad Oglesby, a Case senior and former SJP president, brought up a forest for the trees mentality, that history would see the encamped in a better light rather than being a burden. He reminded those present there was a reason that the encampment began around the 54th anniversary of the May 4th Kent State Shootings.

“In the past, protesters have been labeled as radicals, as malefactors to society,” Oglesby said, wearing a black suit wrapped in a keffiyeh. “That’s how we were labeled during the Civil Rights movement. That’s how we were labeled during the Vietnam war. That’s how we were viewed during protesting South African apartheid.

He added: “And that’s how we are being labeled today.”