University of Chicago graduates who support Palestinian movement have their degrees withheld due to protests

Five University of Chicago graduates received their diplomas this week after the school withheld their issuance for more than two months because of students’ alleged participation in pro-Palestinian camps.

Youssef Hasweh and four others — Rayna Acha, Kelly Hui, Andrew Basta and a postgraduate student who declined to give his last name — received letters in recent weeks confirming their awards, saying their disciplinary cases had been dropped and their degrees would be mailed to them.

While pleased that the disciplinary process is over, Hasweh still wonders why the five were punished in the first place. They were never informed of their alleged misconduct, beyond receiving a complaint that did not include their names but referred to their participation in a pro-Palestinian camp on campus.

The University of Chicago did not respond to a request for comment.

Hasweh, 22, was one of more than two dozen people arrested in October during a protest against the occupation of the university, demanding that the university disclose its investments and divest from Israeli-linked entities and arms companies.

His misdemeanor trespassing charge was eventually dropped. However, the university continued to pursue disciplinary action, which could include withholding degrees until the case is resolved.

The arrest resulted in Hasweh being fired from his job at the admissions office. After graduation, several job offers were also rescinded, and the university withheld his degree, he said.

“Going through it, it was so unfair,” Hasweh told the Sun-Times. “Like I was going to start my life and I was going to get a job and officially graduate and they just put my life and my career path on hold to unfairly name us when none of our names were even on those complaints.”

The five students were required to write personal statements to the school and attend disciplinary hearings before a committee of university staff headed by interim chair, chemistry professor Bryan Dickinson.

The appointment of the interim chair, who was appointed by Vice Provost Katherine Baicker without consulting acting chairs or the faculty senate after complaints were filed, was “clear interference,” according to Denis Hirschfeldt, a mathematics professor who served on the faculty senate that drafted the disciplinary policy in 2017.

The University of Chicago previously said in a statement that “routinely” the committee assigns multiple chairs based on “availability and commitment to other matters,” but did not mention appointing an ad hoc chair. It added that the process “has been consistently followed in accordance with past practices.”

Students who were denied diplomas could attend the June 1 graduation ceremony by planning to walk with empty diploma folders.

Several students, families and faculty walked out of the graduation ceremony in protest of the war. Some, including Hasweh, were met by parents and other attendees shouting profanities, he said. Other protesters were pepper-sprayed by university and Chicago police officers.

“The scene was crazy, like students in robes and caps, adorned with scarves, brooches and cords, were being pepper-sprayed, and they themselves were being pepper-sprayed at their graduation ceremony for saying it was not okay,” Hasweh said.

Although the university disciplinary process was resolved and Hasweh officially received a degree in political science, “a part of me will never recover from what happened last year,” said Hasweh, who has family in the West Bank.

“The work is not done. I will come back, but now I will just work from a different perspective,” he said. “Now I am officially a graduate, so the university will never get rid of me and it will not end until they divest from all Israeli entities, and then I will move on, that is what I consider my degree.”