Seven Tulane University students who participated in a protest demanding the release of pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil from immigration detention could face consequences from school administrators.
The students are alleged to have committed conduct violations and face a series of administrative hearings, students and their supporters said at a news conference last week.
They believe Tulane administrators are targeting them after a March 11 protest that was held off-campus near Tulane and Loyola University, where activists called on the schools to not cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and to make the schools sanctuaries for immigrant students, faculty and staff. The calls came after Khalil, a pro-Palestine protester and former Columbia University student, was arrested at his university apartment and sent to Jena, Louisiana, to await deportation.
“[Tulane] will suppress anyone who dares to exercise their First Amendment right to condemn them,” Tulane student Cameron McLaren said at the press conference.
This latest crop of disciplinary measures from Tulane is part of a nationwide wave of discipline that student activists have been met with for their pro-Palestine activism. Student organizers from Tulane and Loyola still face discipline, including semester-long suspensions, from the encampment or other pro-Palestine-related activism.
According to emails sent to two of those students and reviewed by Verite News, Tulane investigators contend that the students are associated with a group called Tulane Students for a Democratic Society. The group was suspended as a student organization by the university last year over a different unauthorized pro-Palestine protest and is currently forbidden from operating on campus.
The group, which now calls itself Together United Students for a Democratic Society, said in response in an Instagram post that the university is repressing students who are exercising their right to freedom of speech. The group now operates off-campus under a different name, though it continues to use a logo in university colors that is identical to the one it used when it was recognized by the university.
University spokesperson Michael Strecker declined to comment on the individual student conduct charges, noting that the code of conduct applies to student actions on and off campus.
“We fundamentally respect the right to protest,” Strecker said. “However, students may be held accountable for behavior if it violates university conduct policies.”
The students deny the university’s accusations, pointing out that the group has changed its name, met off-campus and didn’t hold the March 11 protest on school property.
Atticus Pratt, one of the students involved, is facing a probe called a “major matter investigation” that could lead to suspension or expulsion. Pratt said they had faced conduct charges before for their activism.
“They want to suspend students so we can’t go on campus and we can’t organize,” Pratt told Verite News. “They want to scare us out of continuing to organize. They want to make other people known that there will be consequences for joining an organization like SDS, or for attending an off-campus protest.”
Adelaide Ritzman, another student facing conduct charges, said they believe the university is violating the First Amendment rights of students who participate in such protests.
“Tulane is trying to figure out who they can scapegoat and who they can kind of make an example of,” Ritzman said.
New Orleans-area First Amendment attorney William Most, whose law firm has been involved in some of the legal matters surrounding protests at Tulane, agrees.
“Tulane may have violated federal law in its drastically harsher treatment of pro-Palestine students as compared to other students for comparable conduct,” Most said in statement to Verite News. “And [Tulane’s police department] in particular may have violated the First Amendment in its crackdown on students based on the content of their speech.”
As the Trump administration targets immigrant students and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in higher education, some Tulane students say the school is cracking down on student speech beyond just protests.
McLaren, another one of the seven students facing discipline, said she was arrested and briefly detained earlier this month after briefly leaving her backpack unattended in the Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life, which resulted in the evacuation of the building.
McLaren spoke up at the press conference publicizing the disciplinary allegations. She said she was walking around campus with a sign on her backpack that criticized the university’s decision to get rid of its diversity, equity and inclusion office and encouraged people not to attend Tulane because of it.
The note read: “Tulane just got rid of DEI…if you have the means, go elsewhere,” according to the Tulane Hullabaloo.
Strecker said McLaren was neither arrested nor charged.
According to Strecker, Tulane police were made aware of an abandoned backpack that had a note attached to it left on the Lavin-Bernick Center’s second floor. The university said the building was quickly evacuated due to safety concerns. University police immediately responded, investigated the event and eventually found that the backpack posed no threat and normal operations resumed after the location was deemed safe, the spokesperson said.
Tulane crime logs show that a “suspicious package” was reported in the building and that the case was closed with no further action being taken. The same website says that this term means that no further investigative action is needed.
McLaren declined further interview requests, but said in an email to Verite News that her “arrest and conduct charges are clearly politically motivated. I did not break any laws nor did I violate any conduct rules.”