Disciplinary action was brought against eight Wesleyan students following a rally on Sept. 21 at Wesleyan University calling for the university to divest money that would help fund Israel. According to Reana Akthar, one of the students facing disciplinary action, seven of the students were able to reach a resolution with the university. However, Akthar is still facing a threat of suspension from the university, which she claims is due to the university trying to turn her into a “scapegoat.”
Akthar, a third-semester government and education studies double major at Wesleyan, talked about her perspective of the situation in an interview with the Daily Campus.
“On Sept. 21 we had a divestment rally, and from that, eight individuals received notice of an internal disciplinary hearing. Of the eight individuals, one student was misidentified… [and another] was a legal observer,” Akthar said. “Legal observers are tasked with physically separating themselves from the rally. Their only job is to take notes, so this student wasn’t chanting, she wasn’t with the crowd and still she was charged.”
All eight students were faced with disciplinary action from Wesleyan University based on charges of “harassment and abuse, disruption, disturbance of the peace and failure to comply,” according to Akthar.
Akthar believes that these charges are unfair and inaccurate to what students were doing at the rally, and that they are being brought against the students because of the content of their pro-Palestinian message and not because of their actions. The actions at the event that resulted in the disciplinary action were “drumming, speaking, sitting near a bench and interacting with counter protesters,” including shouting expletives at Wesleyan’s board of trustees.
Following the charges, the students tried to resolve the disciplinary action with the university. The student who was misidentified and the legal observer had all disciplinary action dropped against them, while five other students were issued “points,” according to Akthar.
According to Akthar, students accumulate points through disciplinary hearings, and if ten points are accumulated students receive a suspension from the university. Akthar said that the five students who gained points to their record received between two to four points for their participation in the rally.
However, Akthar said she has not been able to reach the same resolution that the seven other students were able to and is “the only student who was asked to proceed with the hearing.” Akthar believes that this is because of her involvement in organizing the rally, and because she is the only brown and Muslim organizer for the rally.
“I think this is targeted, I think it’s discriminatory, [and] I think it’s racist,” Akthar said. “A lot of why I’m being asked to move forward with this hearing is because of my role as an organizer. I’m being scapegoated for the actions of the crowd; I’m being asked to take responsibility for what other folks did and said.”
Akthar said that she believes the university is going through with the hearings to “send a message” to students.
“I think that a large reason of why they’re targeting me is to discourage other students from participating in other forms of direct action, and really in that they want to maintain their involvement in complicity with genocide. It’s about protecting their investment, it’s about protecting their tuition and their involvement,” Akthar said.
A disciplinary hearing for Akthar will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 13. Akthar has previously received six points toward suspension following a sit-in that was held on Sept. 20, so Akthar could face suspension from Wesleyan University if she receives four or more points through this hearing.
Akthar criticized Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan University, for his involvement with the issue, calling him a “hypocrite.”
“[Roth] has written several op-eds about why he won’t call the police on his students, about how much he values freedom of speech and the right to organize, the right to protest and how much he values dissent,” Akthar said. “I think he’s a liar… I think that he is responsible for a lot of why these charges were levied against us. I don’t think he cares about students of color. Just the other day, in the wake of the election results, he wrote that the university would try to protect the most vulnerable among us, and I am one of the most vulnerable among us and he is actively trying to suspend me.”
The Daily Campus reached out to Wesleyan University spokesperson Ziba Kashef for comment and has yet to receive a response.
A rally will take place today at noon at Wesleyan University in support of Akthar. UNCHAIN, a tier-II student organization at the University of Connecticut that has organized pro-Palestinian protests and rallies, has posted on their Instagram urging Connecticut and Middletown residents to attend the rally and has posted in support of Akthar and the seven other students who were charged.