DU for Palestine students say university punished group with location restrictions

DENVER (KDVR) — Student protesters said they were given location restrictions by the University of Denver administration because of their ongoing pro-Palestine and anti-Zionist protest encampment on Carnegie Green.

The students called the measures disproportionate to their alleged actions. The student group, called DU for Palestine, said that DU administrators have prioritized “the voices of the Zionist sect of Judaism on campus while restricting staff support to the Jewish students who are currently at the greatest risk,” according to the student group’s press release.

The group said 10 students, including three Jewish students, have received “location restrictions” from the school.

“Although I received my location restriction on Friday, my ID card was deactivated on Wednesday and I was locked out of my housing, my place of work, lost access to my schooling, and to the food pantry, which I need for food insecurity,” said Caleb Bishop, a graduate student at the school of social work. “The punishments by the university are vicious and disproportionate to the acts of noncompliance that we have practiced at the encampment.”

Each student’s location restriction appeared to be different, with students saying that the first person to get such a restriction was “banned from everywhere on campus except for where she attended school.” The group also said the school threatened student protesters with suspension or arrest by Denver police if they broke the restrictions.

The students said they would appeal the restrictions, which they also said are an “interim punishment” that the university doles out, but did not know for what.

The school told FOX31 that no student IDs have been deactivated, but some have been restricted “so they can only access buildings where they go to class, eat, live, etc.”

What is a location restriction; when does DU use it?

DU provided some insight into the measures in a response to FOX31 on Sunday.

“We have a progressive discipline process that is detailed in the University of Denver Student Honor Code. The process begins with a warning and can progress to include location restrictions, interim suspensions, and trespass violations,” a university spokesperson said. “A location restriction order identifies spaces that a student is permitted to go on campus. We have multiple students who have received disciplinary notifications.”

The measure is listed under “mutual no contact and location restriction orders” in the Honor Code . It says that the written location restriction order “will define the space to be avoided, which may include particular rooms, buildings, outdoor areas, events, or other spaces as described.” The Honor Code said location restrictions can cause housing or class section reassignments.

DU also addressed how they are identifying protesters who are continuing to refuse to give their IDs to any school administrators.

“There are more than 12,000 students on the University of Denver campus,” a DU spokesperson said. “Administrators are constantly evaluating and re-evaluating how to help students successfully finish the academic year. Leadership has met multiple times with counter protestors, who have been fully compliant with ID checks and the honor code. Meetings with individuals from the encampment will not continue until they comply fully with the honor code.”

The student group claimed that university administrators said they would not ID the counter-protesters, and said the pro-Palestine encampment poses no safety threats.

“The administration has felt comfortable to walk right up to the edge or even into the encampment … some have even offered us muffins in the morning,” said Bishop. “On Thursday, Provost Mary Clark came and I had a conversation with her directly.”

Bishop said that the reasons DU gave him for why he had a location restriction were because of falsified identification, endangerment and violation of access, which Bishop claimed was because he gave his ID to another student to use an indoor bathroom. Bishop said Clark argued that he had given his card to “many, many people.”

Rachel Roberts, a Jewish graduate student in social work, said she was one of the students who met with the chancellor, Jeremy Haefner. She said Haefner claimed to have been meeting with Jewish students, which surprised her as a Jewish student. She said she’d never heard of the conversations, and her Jewish friends also said they were out of the loop.

“It became very clear that these meetings were for the Zionist Jewish community, only a very specific sector of the Jewish community on campus,” Roberts said.

Roberts also said she tries to follow a law under the Jewish tradition that translates to “save every life,” and said the encampment protest for a ceasefire in Gaza “feels very in line” with her faith.

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