‘They deserve better’: Vanderbilt faculty oppose expelling student activists

When students at Vanderbilt University staged a sit-in to demand the university divest financial support from Israel, the administration took swift action.

The pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupying Kirkland Hall were placed on interim suspension while still inside the administrative building on March 26 through the early morning hours of March 27. Three of the students were later expelled.

“It felt very much like they were being thrown off the island in a highly performative and narrative way that was seemingly meant to reach an audience that was not us, that was not the Vanderbilt community,” said Terry Maroney, a law professor at Vanderbilt.

Maroney is one of more than 170 faculty members who signed an open letter in early April, opposing the administration’s decision to expel students. Several faculty members have continued sending letters in support of the students and criticizing how the school’s Chancellor, Daniel Diermeier, has conducted himself publicly.

Marianna Bacallao WPLN News

Members of the Vanderbilt and larger Nashville community protest in favor of letting students vote on a referendum to divest money from Israel.

As pro-Palestinian demonstrations have become widespread on college campuses across the country, Diermeier has published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition and MSNBC’s Morning Joe and was interviewed by the New York Times.

In a follow up letter from faculty sent to the provost on April 25, signatories criticized Diermeier’s presence in the national media.

“These statements contain multiple misrepresentations and omissions, too many to catalog here, which have a concrete, negative impact on the students facing disciplinary action,” faculty wrote in an email shared with WPLN News.

The letter pointed to some examples, like releasing statements that said protestors left voluntarily when protestors say they were forcibly removed, believing they might be under arrest. The letter criticized Diermeier for telling NPR and the Faculty Senate that students “ran over” a community service officer when they gained entry to Kirkland Hall.

“Chancellor Diermeier’s statements delegitimize student protest and assume predetermined outcomes for students involved in an ongoing accountability process,” the letter said. “When the Chancellor has prejudged the matter so publicly and so repeatedly, it seems impossible to expect a fair process.”

The next day, on April 26, another op-ed from Diermeier ran in Forbes magazine.

“He’s not taking actions that seem designed to heal our community, or to foster real dialog, or to engage in serious debate about, not just the underlying issues, but the proper balance of student protest,” Maroney said. “It feels very much that he’s using our students whose actual futures are at stake as tokens or narrative talking points when they are not. They are members of our community, and they deserve better than that.”

Diermeier told WPLN News that his communication to national media and the Vanderbilt community has been consistent.

“I’ve made it clear about how we view the student conduct. They are responsible for their actions,” he said. “We have been very clear in our communication to Vanderbilt and our public comments in our commitment to free speech, to institutional neutrality — which means that we will not take positions on political issues — and our commitment to civil discourse and our students when they are joining us on campus.”

Marianna Bacallao WPLN News

Vanderbilt alum Jane Steinfels-Hussain holds a sign, quoting Vanderbilt’s Chancellor Daniel Diermeier.

Faculty members also argue that the expulsions and suspensions go against what the university teaches.

“There’s lots of ways that we, as academics at Vanderbilt, espouse, for example, the way the criminal legal system could work in a more non-punitive way,” Maroney said. “There’s no reason why we can’t do those exact same things on our own campus.”

The administration could use educational sanctions against the students, Maroney said, rather than the interim suspensions that kept them out of their dorms — or the expulsions that might keep them from their diplomas.

Read the full text of the open letter sent by faculty on April 25 below:

Dear Provost Raver: 

Thank you for meeting with us last Friday to discuss the public letter that we and over 170 of our Vanderbilt faculty and staff colleagues signed to convey our concerns with the university’s handling of the Vanderbilt Divestment Coalition sit-in at Kirkland Hall. You were generous with your time at a busy point in the semester and a fraught moment for our university. We appreciate your comment that peaceful demonstrators have been permitted to continue camping outside Kirkland Hall; we hope the administration’s acceptance of nonviolent protest outdoors will continue. 

While reiterating the concerns we raised in our letter, we wish also to register our growing discomfort about the integrity of the process for students currently appealing disciplinary decisions. In our meeting, you deflected our substantive concerns that harsh and selective discipline of student protesters does grave damage to our intellectual and pedagogical community. Instead, you emphasized the necessity of waiting out the university’s student disciplinary process. You suggested that any deviation from the process would be unfair to other students subject to disciplinary action. While we question whether the student accountability code and processes, as currently formulated, provide the appropriate frame within which to respond to student protest, we have even graver concerns with your claim that you are powerless to act because of the pendency of the appellate process. Our worry is that the administration’s public statements and actions have tainted the neutrality of the process. We find these statements antithetical to the pedagogical mission of the university and at odds with the idea of an inclusive intellectual community on which that mission rests.

Since the forcible removal of students from Kirkland Hall on March 27th, Chancellor Diermeier has issued a number of statements regarding the events through emails to the campus community, an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, and interviews with the New York Times and NPR’s Morning Edition. These statements contain multiple misrepresentations and omissions, too many to catalog here, which have a concrete, negative impact on the students facing disciplinary action, on the integrity of our intellectual and pedagogical community, and on the bonds of trust on which our community depends. Some of these misrepresentations have been pointed out by student journalists in the Vanderbilt Hustler and in their letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, and by Vanderbilt AAUP on X(formerly Twitter).

Chancellor Diermeier’s statements delegitimize student protest and assume predetermined outcomes for students involved in an ongoing accountability process. He has referred to their actions as “vandalism” and equated their protest with “disruption.” In his NPR interview and in his remarks to the Faculty Senate, he said students “ran over” the Community Service officer at the entrance to Kirkland Hall. He has asserted that “protest [and] disruption” are the feckless aim of a small and marginal group of students. Indeed, he has stated directly that the students who entered Kirkland Hall “were not interested in discourse.” In fact, the students made clear they hoped to speak to the Chancellor. His mischaracterization of the students’ aim and their supposed marginality is further belied by the 100-plus students and dozens of faculty who walked out in support of suspended students on April 8, the dozens of residential life staff members petitioning against sanctions for student protesters, and the extensive educational and cultural programming carried out by the Vanderbilt Divest Coalition. Dialogue and engagement on the important underlying issues were, and remain, the point. Chancellor Diermeier nonetheless continues to broadcast the assertion that the protest did not implicate issues of “free speech,” even calling that core value a “red herring.” His characterization of the events removes all context of legitimate protest from the students’ actions. When the Chancellor has prejudged the matter so publicly and so repeatedly, it seems impossible to expect a fair process.

Through his public comments, the Chancellor is placing his thumb on the scales of impartial justice. His communications are using our students to make a point to an outside audience, thus betraying the university’s pedagogical mission. This should be troubling for all students, faculty, and staff on this campus. We continue to call on the administration to repeal all expulsions, suspensions, disciplinary sanctions, and criminal charges against the students, and bring this matter to a conclusion in a way that reinvigorates faith in fair process and the pedagogical mission of the university.