A group of resident advisors and other Housing and Residential Experience staff submitted a letter to university administration on March 28 calling for the 27 students suspended for their involvement in a sit-in at Kirkland Hall to be granted permission to remain in on-campus housing.
Another petition calling for the revocation of student suspensions and criminal charges was submitted on Roadmaps, the Vanderbilt Student Government petition website, and on Change.org, a website which allows non-Vanderbilt affiliated individuals to sign the petition.
As of publication, the letter from the RAs was signed by 50 people, including one faculty in residence, one former faculty in residence, one associate professor, nine head residents and 38 RAs. The Roadmaps petition, submitted by junior Helena Spigner, gained 636 signatures, and the Change.org petition gained 3,806 signatures. Spigner declined The Hustler’s request for comment on March 31.
Vanderbilt Muslim Students Association also released a statement in an April 2 Instagram post calling for the university to repeal the suspensions and dismiss criminal charges against students who participated in the protests.
“Threatening students with legal repercussions for exercising their constitutional rights to assemble actively works to silence and beat down marginalized and minority voices,” the statement reads. “It sends a clear message that free speech is only reserved for the wealthy and powerful.”
The RA letter said that the removal of students from university housing goes against the mission of RAs as staff members of the university.
“In our roles, we spend our time aiming to build community for our residents and support them as they navigate college and life,” the letter reads. “We do this to create a safe home right on campus, somewhere where students feel empowered to learn, make mistakes, grow and figure out who they are and what they want to accomplish in life.”
The letter further encouraged administration to allow students to live in university housing while the Student Accountability review process takes place.
“Regardless of their actions and the accountability processes that follow, we are appalled that Vanderbilt would strip them of their homes,” the letter reads. “Regardless of rules that were broken, Vanderbilt has created housing insecurity for these students and, in doing so, directly contradicts their mission to create a safe environment for students to ‘dare to grow.’”
A head resident from Centennial, an area of housing on campus containing Rothschild College and Zeppos College, granted anonymity for protection from professional retribution, described the removal of students from campus housing as “distressing” in an email to The Hustler.
“Because it seems like the student accountability process can take days to weeks at a time, the interim suspension leaves students unhoused with the expectation that they will find funding to pay for housing,” the Centennial HR said. “Students must do this all while navigating the student accountability process, which takes away from their ability to focus on academics and prepare for their hearings.”
The Centennial HR further explained how students who were removed from Kirkland Hall around 6:30 a.m. CDT on March 27 were told to leave campus by 5 p.m. CDT that same day.
“Students had to navigate finding alternative housing day of with the assumption that they may or may not have the financial and logistical means to find a safe bed for the night,” the Centennial HR said.
The Centennial HR also said the letter from the RAs represents the concerns of many RAs about the loss of safe and affordable housing for students involved in the protests.
“I am surprised that this is a practice at Vanderbilt, and I hope that in the future the values of the residential requirement are upheld by allowing all students equal access to on campus housing,” the Centennial HR said.
A head resident from Commons also being kept anonymous for protection from professional retribution said it was “troubling” that students were removed from the dorms and campus they pay to access.
“It was important for us to express our condemnation of the university’s actions as an act of solidarity with the suspended students and to make clear that although we may work for the university and act as regulating agents on their behalf on occasion, we do not stand with their decision to remove these students from their homes and that we want to hold the university accountable for their unfair and unjust actions against these students,” the Commons HR said.
The petitions submitted to Roadmaps and Change.org have similar text as each other with slightly different phrasing in a few places to accommodate for the different audiences. The petitions outline the past efforts of groups such as Vanderbilt Divest Coalition to protest the removal of a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions amendment from the VSG constitution by university administration and advocate for criminal charges and disciplinary actions against students to be dropped.
“Protestors acted only with the intent to practice their right to free speech and assembly — nothing more,” the petition reads.
The petitions concluded by calling on university administration to reinstate the referendum to amend the VSG constitution.
“All students have the right to protest and advocate for what they believe in,” the petition reads. “We believe amending the VSG constitution to avoid funding companies that directly support Israel’s genocide in Palestine is a first step to giving students an active voice in determining the use of their funds.”
