Anti-Zionist faculty at the University of Florida (UF) are demanding lighter sentences for six student protesters who the university suspended for as long as four years as punishment for their role in occupying the campus in an attempt to intimidate officials into boycotting and divesting from Israel, according to The Independent Alligator, the school’s official newspaper.

As The Algemeiner previously reported, UF’s disciplinary body was set on slapping the students’ wrists, sentencing most to probation only based on recommendations from “hearing bodies,” until its new dean, Chris Summerlin, intervened and issued full suspensions for as many as four years. The harshest suspensions — including four years for Allan Hektor Frasheri, 21, and three years for other students — while not being formal expulsions, are long enough to make it unlikely that the students serving them will return to the University of Florida.

“We, as faculty at the University of Florida, must stand in solidarity with students because they are being deprived of educational opportunities without justification. In fact, it is clear that the University of Florida is bypassing its own policies and processes to issue these suspensions,” a faculty group known as Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) wrote to Summerlin earlier this month. “Chris Summerlin overruled the recommendations of the Student Conduct Committee by finding the student-protestors responsible on all charges and suspended the students for 3-4 years. At our university, a three-year suspension is equivalent to an expulsion given that students suspended for more than three semesters must reapply to the university before returning.”

Propagating falsehoods about Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, the professors continued, “We know that UF values free speech and viewpoint diversity and respect President [Ben] Sasse’s stated commitment to them …We issue this statement as faculty who value the honor code and mission of this university, and wish to protect the integrity of the institution which we serve.”

Speaking to the Alligator, UF spokesman Steve Orlando defended the punishments, stressing that “students who break rules face consequences.” He continued, “UF clearly, patiently, and repeatedly communicated existing rules to protesters and then the university enforced those rules — just like we said we would. The University of Florida upholds free speech and enforces the rules. We expect our students to act like adults and take responsibility for their actions.”

Summerlin’s suspensions may not be the only consequences six students may face.

According to earlier reports, they were part of a group of nine who local law enforcement arrested for trespassing and resisting arrest, charges that are being prosecuted by the Alachua County State Attorney’s Office. They are taking their chances at trial, after having rejected “deferred prosecution,” an agreement that would require them to plead guilty, or no contest, in exchange for the state’s expunging the convictions from their records in the future so long as they abstain from committing more criminal acts.

One of the nine, computer science student Parker Stanley Hovis, 26, — who was suspended for three years — has proclaimed  that they will contest the state’s cases.

“We did not resist arrest, and we are prepared to fight our charges,” Hovis said in a statement. “We’re standing in solidarity with each other, and collectively demanding that the state drop the charges against us.”

The University of Texas at Austin has also meted out lengthy suspensions to pro-Hamas protesters who violated school rules, a course of action that experts believe is a deterrent against similar behavior in the future.

Three students have been sentenced to deferred suspensions, a form of probation which allows them to continue their studies so long as they comply with school rules going forward, according KUT News, a National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate. As part of their punishment, they must pass an exam testing their knowledge of school policies on free speech and protests and formally declare their awareness of the harsher, full suspensions they will receive should they violate school rules again.

However, some colleges have “downgraded” disciplinary measures levied against pro-Hamas demonstrators. Harvard University infamously did so earlier this month, feeding an impression that it initially punished the students to temper a wave of negative publicity prompted by dozens of allegations that it declined to regain control of the campus despite a surge in antisemitic rhetoric and harassment. The amnestied students reviled the university anyway, accusing it “caving in” and vowing to continue what they call the “student intifada.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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