Based on the allegation that I was present at the Parkhurst sit-in on Wednesday, I have been placed on immediate suspension from the College. I am currently banned from all Dartmouth-owned or affiliated properties. I have been provided with no evidence proving my presence at the sit-in that occurred on Wednesday, and based on the communications I received from the College, this punishment is partly based on my previous advocacy for divestment.
I am writing this piece not as an admission of guilt to their accusations or to condemn the action taken by protesters, but rather to push back on the misinformation perpetuated by the administration and stand in solidarity with my peers who participated in the sit-in.
It is true that the actions taken by student protesters on May 28 were more escalated and disruptive than previous methods of protest. Disrupting business as usual is precisely the point of acts of civil disobedience. The College should not expect students protesting against a genocide to engage on their terms of dialogue when, for years now, the College has refused to negotiate or bargain with students, faculty, alumni and community members in good faith on divestment.
Recent events have only confirmed this trend. Over the course of the last year, a coalition of students, faculty, staff, community members and alumni invested countless hours into creating a divestment proposal tailored to align with the College's divestment criteria. Yet, despite countless petitions, emails and repeatedly attending office hours, the divestment proposal went unanswered for months. It wasn’t until the May 1, 2025, encampment — a form of protest that is not condoned by College policy — that the College finally agreed to respond.
Weeks later, Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility responded by rejecting the divestment proposal on all criteria, clearly demonstrating that working within existing institutional channels to achieve divestment is not feasible in the immediate future despite the urgency of the situation in Gaza. To add insult to injury, the very next day, the College announced the Davidson Institute for Global Security — named after the founders of Silver Lake, a private equity firm that invests in tech companies that work with the Israeli military.
Students have a moral imperative to resist our institution’s and the government’s complicity and direct funding of the mass slaughter and starvation of Palestinians. Official reports from both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the world’s two preeminent international human rights organizations, have concluded that Israel is currently committing the crimes of apartheid and genocide against the Palestinian people. Given the inefficacy of working within institutional channels to achieve divestment, the College should expect nothing less than continued disruption of the College’s usual functioning — so long as business as usual at Dartmouth is complicit in genocide.
I support the actions of student protesters, and I have no intention to stop protesting for divestment and an end to the genocide in Gaza. At the same time, I find it disturbing that the College failed to provide any tangible evidence of my involvement in the sit-in on Wednesday before placing me on immediate suspension. Rather than going through the established Committee on Standards procedures, which would have afforded me a trial and the ability to defend myself before being suspended, I received a call Wednesday evening from an unknown number — which I later found out was from Dean Anne Hudak — notifying me of my immediate trespass from all Dartmouth-owned facilities.
The immediate nature of my trespass has caused me significant harm and has severely jeopardized my safety and well-being. As a low-income, financially independent student without any familial support, I have nowhere else to go. Without giving me any time to prepare, I have been entirely cut off from my access to food, medication, employment, and my belongings, essentially leaving me stranded.
For Dartmouth, it is easier to target and harass people they assume to be leaders within activist organizations rather than confront their complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Safety and Security director Keiselim Montás, who accused me of being present at the protest on Wednesday, has a demonstrated pattern of misidentifying student activists — including claiming a student in class at the time was taking part in the sit-in. My separation from the Dartmouth community Wednesday night, purely on the basis that I was accused of being present at the sit-in, is an extremely worrying escalation from the College that reveals they can and will target student activists without reliable evidence.
The administration’s characterization of the protest as violent is both blatantly false and a part of a pattern of behavior of accusing pro-Palestinian protesters of being violent. House professors present at the sit-in have communicated directly to the administration that they did not observe any threat of violence from protesters. To the contrary, it was students who were harmed – a Jewish student protester was pushed to the ground by a Safety and Security officer. Similarly, back in the fall of 2023, the College claimed Kevin and I were a threat to the safety of the community during our encampment outside Parkhurst, and only acknowledged these accusations were false after our two-week hunger strike.
Students have continuously protested Dartmouth’s complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza for the last 19 months. Yet, the College’s reaction has remained one of deflecting, obfuscating and denying divestment from weapons manufacturers. My time at Dartmouth may have come to an end, but regardless of my attendance, the struggle for divestment will continue. The only question is not if, but when, Dartmouth will divest.
Roan V. Wade is a member of the Class of 2025. Guest columns represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
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