Suspended UNC Student Protesters Say the University Lacked Due Diligence in Bringing Disciplinary Charges Against Them

In May, following student-led antiwar demonstrations that intensified after campus police intervened, UNC-Chapel Hill officials suspended 17 pro-Palestine student activists, according to Students for Justice in Palestine, or SJP. 

Federal privacy laws prevent UNC from disclosing or discussing conduct cases.

The students were suspended on summary charges ranging from alleged free speech violations to alleged assaults on law enforcement officials, according to suspension notices reviewed by the INDY. Suspensions were temporary but indefinite, and immediate: during a month students planned to spend taking final exams, they were barred from academic involvement and banned from campus.

Most of the 17 students opted to resolve their suspensions through an agreement with conditions. (Students declined to discuss the conditions with the INDY, citing concerns over a clause that allows UNC to release the document, including the names of all signatories, if any details are misrepresented.) 

But several asked for formal hearings to challenge the charges. What followed for two—Hashem Amireh, a doctoral student in economics and the president of the UNC-Chapel Hill Graduate Student Union, and Kaleb, a senior majoring in history and computer science who requested the INDY use only his first name—was a months-long odyssey that led both to question the fairness and transparency of the university’s disciplinary process.

Both students say UNC lacked due diligence in bringing the disciplinary charges. They also allege that, in deciding their suspensions, the university placed undue weight on testimonies from sources who the students say are biased, including a professor and a campus police officer.

Amireh, who was not arrested, alleges that a professor in the economics department played an outsized role in encouraging the university to pursue disciplinary actions against him. Records reviewed by the INDY support this claim. Amireh’s suspension, which rested on murky charges that he was “observed participating” in violence and “may have provided unauthorized access” to a campus building, was dismissed by the Emergency Evaluation and Action Committee (EEAC) in July. Last week, he faced the UNC Honor Court to address honor code violation allegations, which were also dismissed.

Kaleb, meanwhile, was arrested during a May protest and charged with several criminal offenses, including assault on a government official. The EEAC upheld his suspension, which was based on those pending charges, following a July hearing. He now awaits both the outcome of his suspension appeal—which challenges the university’s use of pending criminal charges as grounds for discipline and alleges misconduct by campus police—and the resolution of his criminal case.

The ordeal has weighed heavily on both students. Amireh, who is Palestinian Jordanian, could have lost his visa if his suspension had been upheld, while Kaleb’s graduation and graduate school plans hang in the balance.

The resolutions of their cases will have implications for the student movement at UNC, where pro-Palestine demonstrations have resumed since the fall semester began. Reports from the besieged Gaza Strip—where hostages remain and where Israeli forces have now killed at least 43,000 Palestinians, including nearly 17,000 children, according to Gazan health officials, though public health experts say the actual death toll is presumed to be higher—are still unfathomably dire.

Recent actions on campus, including a packed evening vigil on October 7 and a “Walkout for the West Bank” in September, have varied from subdued to charged, with some protesters at the walkout vandalizing academic buildings and the Naval ROTC Armory. Across the board, UNC has doubled down on security measures. Last month, the planned location for the October 7 vigil was fenced off ahead of the event, and the university has implemented surveillance cameras and student ID requirements in response to planned protests.

In a statement to the INDY, UNC’s media relations team wrote that the university often has peaceful demonstrations around campus and that it supports community members’ rights to demonstrate peacefully under the First Amendment.

“However,” the statement reads, “everyone must follow University policies, and we must enforce our policies and local/state laws equitably across the board, no matter the viewpoint.”

Amireh was among hundreds who participated in the Palestine Solidarity Encampment that occupied UNC’s quad for four days in late April.

Following the dismantling of the encampment on April 30, he also attended a rally that escalated when campus police clashed with protesters amid forcibly reinstating an American flag.

But Amireh was not among the 30-plus protesters detained or arrested in connection with those demonstrations. So on May 3, he was confused to receive a notice of suspension and campus ban. The notice cited two allegations as grounds for his suspension: that he had been “observed participating in at least one physical act of violence toward another person” and that he “may have provided” student protesters with “unauthorized access” to Gardner Hall, the building that houses UNC’s economics department. But it did not explain the origin of the claims or provide evidence to back them, only noting that, as a teaching assistant, Amireh has access to Gardner Hall.

“Just because I have a key and I’m part of the pro-Palestine movement does not mean I provided access to people who were in that building,” Amireh says.

After receiving the notice, Amireh contacted a legal team that had volunteered to represent other student protesters. His options included requesting a formal hearing to resolve the suspension. Preparing a defense would be tricky without a disclosure under the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to understand the source of the allegations. FERPA requests take up to 45 days, so Amireh had to delay the hearing, commit to remaining banned from campus, and set aside his academic research. Amireh says he could take this route solely because classes had just ended. 

“The process is supremely deficient,” Amireh says. “If this happened halfway through the semester, you would feel obligated to have a hearing super quickly to not jeopardize your education, but you wouldn’t have the information you need to … defend yourself.”

Amireh received the FERPA disclosure in June, while he was at the gym. He tried to scroll through it on his phone but it was hundreds of pages long.

“I had to go home to look at it on the computer,” Amireh says. “I couldn’t wait, I was too anxious.”

When he started reviewing the document, his stomach turned. Emails in the disclosure, which the INDY has reviewed, indicated that the allegations cited in Amireh’s suspension notice had come largely from a professor in Amireh’s own department, Jonathan Williams. 

Williams did not respond to the INDY’s request for comment.

On May 2, UNC provost Chris Clemens wrote in an email to Amy Johnson, vice chancellor for student affairs, that he had received a photo that he believed depicted Amireh “assaulting an older man on our campus, perhaps an employee.” An attached photo depicted Amireh with his arms wrapped around a man during the rally at the flagpole. Clemens also wrote that Amireh was “likely the person responsible for allowing protesters to camp after hours in Gardner Hall.” 

“It would be helpful to get a report of this incident to run it through our EEAC and Student Conduct processes,” Johnson responded. “Is the provider of the photo able to share any information?”

Clemens told Johnson the photo came from Williams and connected Johnson with the professor through email. The next day, Johnson invited Williams to share what he knew about “what happened and who the players are” in a report or a phone call, records show. Williams responded that he was available for a call before noon. Hours later, Amireh was suspended.

Other documentation indicates that the allegation that Amireh provided unauthorized access to Gardner Hall also originated with Williams, at least in part. A chronicle of the information that the Office of Student Conduct gathered from Williams and Donna Gilleskie, the chair of UNC’s economics department, on May 3, alleges that on April 20, Amireh gathered around dozens of people on the third floor of Gardner Hall and “paraded around.” It further alleges that the following weekend, Amireh “again gave access to a large number of protestors.” It does not specify which information came from Williams and which from Gilleskie, though in an email exchange between Johnson and Jennifer Spangenberg, director of student conduct, the same day, Spangenberg shared two photos, attributed them to Williams, and said they relate to the unauthorized access claim. It’s not clear how the photos implicate Amireh. One shows two students, their faces redacted, walking in a hallway, while the other depicts a backpack, blankets, and a pillow piled on a table in a classroom.

In the days following Amireh’s suspension, Williams continued to email the university.

“I believe Hashem is back on campus and participating in the march today on campus,” Williams wrote in an email to dean of students Desirée Rieckenberg on May 5. A blurry, distant photo of a protester carrying a Palestinian flag was attached. “You can see this beige hat that he regularly wears on the individual holding the flag,” Williams wrote. 

Two days later, Williams alleged in another email that Amireh was “advocat[ing] for violence against police” on social media. Williams attached a screenshot of an Instagram post in which Amireh had written “proud of the students at FU and fuck the fascist pigs” in reference to a video of students clashing with police at the Free University in Berlin, Germany. Williams added that Amireh “aspires to be listed on Canary Mission’s site,” an anonymous platform known for doxxing pro-Palestinian activists.

Amireh says Williams previously served on his PhD committee but that the two don’t have a personal relationship and doesn’t want to speculate over whether the professor targeted him. Overall, Amireh says, the disclosure shows UNC’s lack of due diligence, noting that much of the correspondence between university officials seemed as focused on whether Amireh could grade students’ final papers while suspended as on the actual allegations against him. (Amireh ultimately volunteered to complete the grading and submit final grades remotely.)

Amireh likens preparing for the EEAC hearing to a full-time job. To refute that the photo Williams sent allegedly depicts him engaging in an act of violence, Amireh compiled 17 images—video screenshots, protesters’ photos, photos published by the INDY and The News & Observer—that show the before, during, and after of the altercation. Taken all together, the images show that the other man acted first, wrapping his arm around the neck of a protester wearing a keffiyeh and that Amireh intervened to pull him off of her. That man, based on photos and texts the INDY reviewed, was Chris Ducar, an assistant UNC women’s soccer coach. Ducar did not respond to the INDY’s request for comment.

To counter the allegation that he had provided unauthorized access to Gardner Hall, Amireh used location data from his phone. Those records revealed that Amireh was not on campus on April 20, the day it was alleged that he had “paraded” students through Gardner Hall. 

Location records also showed that Amireh wasn’t on campus the day that Williams accused him of breaking his campus ban to attend a protest. To further refute that allegation, Amireh found an ABC11 clip that captured the face of the actual student in the beige hat.

To supplement his defense, Amireh gathered letters of support from colleagues and students.

“While I do not know why [Amireh] was suspended,” reads one letter from a former student, “I know that it cannot be because of his character in the classroom or around his students.”

Amireh’s EEAC hearing on July 31 went smoothly, he says. After he presented his case, the panel voted to dismiss his suspension. The Honor Court hearing went similarly, with a panel finding Amireh not guilty on charges of four honor code violations.

Johnson, Rieckenberg, Gilleskie, and Spangenberg did not respond to the INDY’s request for comment. Clemens wrote in an emailed statement to the INDY that, in his capacity as a required reporter under [Equal Opportunity and Compliance] policies, he has no further comment.

The cause driving Amireh and Kaleb to participate in campus demonstrations is personal to both of them. While Amireh is Palestinian, Kaleb is Jewish and says his family’s history informs his activism—particularly the stories passed down from his grandfather, a Holocaust survivor.

“The way that Goebbels talked about Jews and the way that Netanyahu talks about Palestinians are the exact same,” Kaleb says. “It’s in my grandfather’s honor and memory to be part of SJP.”

Kaleb’s suspension is tied to criminal charges he sustained in the wake of a protest on May 8. The protest began with a rally on the steps of the South Building, where pro-Palestine demonstrators called on administrators to “grant amnesty” to students who had been suspended the week prior. According to WUNC, the situation escalated when protesters blocked the building’s exits and followed administrators, who were being escorted by campus police and a K-9 unit, to the parking lot. Protesters then obstructed several vehicles, including that of Provost Clemens, surrounding his car and striking it as he attempted to leave, per WUNC.

Kaleb was arrested that day and later charged with assault on a government official, impeding traffic, disorderly conduct, and two counts of resisting a public officer. His suspension notice, issued May 24, cites those charges.

In his emailed statement to the INDY, Clemens said he didn’t know the names of “any of the students or others who were pounding on my car, yelling at me (in one case with a bullhorn), breaking into the vehicle, writing on it with chalk, throwing water bottles at it, papering it with stickers, and blocking my way out of the parking lot.” He added they “were not peaceful protesters” and didn’t seem interested in having a conversation. 

Kaleb says he offered a detailed account of the events preceding his arrest and “consistently denied wrongdoing” during his July 29 EEAC hearing, including refuting allegations that he had come into contact with the provost’s vehicle or failed to comply with law enforcement directives. But the panel posed some questions that he could not address, he says.

“They asked me a bunch of questions and I said, ‘Sorry, I can’t answer that because I have an ongoing criminal case and I have a right to not self-incriminate,’” Kaleb says. “They asked, ‘What would you have done differently on this day?’ And it’s like, who says I did anything wrong on this day?”

The university upheld Kaleb’s suspension. A month later, he filed an appeal. 

Much of the 10-page appeal has to do with the fact that the university is using pending criminal charges as a basis for disciplinary action. Also central is the role of Capt. Lawrence Twiddy, a UNC campus police officer and voting member of the EEAC. Kaleb alleges that Twiddy’s dual role as a witness to the protest and a decision-maker in Kaleb’s hearing represents a conflict of interest. He also alleges that Twiddy was biased in his decision-making in part because he reports to UNC campus police chief Brian James, who, in a statement about the May 8 protest, labeled Kaleb a leader of SJP and described SJP’s activities as “detrimental to UNC” and creating “an environment of harassment and intimidation to many, including employees.” 

In the statement, James further alleged that Kaleb led “the group berating the UNC Police Officers” on May 8 and that he had been a “prominent figure” during previous SJP actions, including when SJP members “attempted to shout down a speaker and had to be escorted out of the Student Union Auditorium” in January. 

The appeal notes that while Kaleb is listed as the point person for SJP, he does not hold any official leadership role within the organization, which operates with a decentralized structure. James’s statement “reflects a predetermined, negative view of” Kaleb, the appeal states, “which was likely imparted to Captain Twiddy, thus contaminating his impartiality.” 

The appeal also claims that Twiddy used extrinsic evidence during the hearing—a violation of university policy, which states that decisions should be based solely on the evidence presented at the hearing. At the hearing of another student suspended for the May 8 protest, Twiddy acknowledged discussing the protest with two officers he had known for decades and credited their accounts, along with bodycam footage and investigative reports, in forming his opinion, according to the appeal and to a recording of the hearing.

Finally, the appeal alleges that during the May 8 protest, campus police used unnecessary force against Kaleb and other demonstrators. Kaleb recalls officers pushing and shoving him. 

“Instead of responding to our honestly very reasonable and very low-bar request of divesting from an ongoing genocide,” Kaleb says, “they decide to call the cops on students and beat the shit out of us.”

Twiddy and James did not respond to the INDY’s request for comment. UNC did not acknowledge the INDY’s inquiry about police brutality toward students in its response to a request for comment.

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