Anti-Israel Protester Suing U. Chicago for Kicking Him Out of Campus Housing
“blocked entry to the university, defaced a sculpture on campus, and damaged police cars”
I have zero sympathy for these ‘protesters.’ Your school kicked you out of housing? Tough luck.
The College Fix reports:
Anti-Israel protester booted from dorm sues U. Chicago for 1st Amendment, tenant violations
A student who participated in an anti-Israel demonstration late last year is suing the University of Chicago for kicking him out of campus housing and placing him on an “involuntary leave of absence.”
In his lawsuit, senior Manuel Rivera accuses UChicago, Interim Dean of Students Michael Hayes, and “two unidentified UCPD officers” of “Unlawful First Amendment Retaliation” and “Unlawful Eviction in Tort,” according to The Chicago Maroon.
Chicago Municipal Code 5-12-160 “regulates landlord interference with tenants’ access to dwellings,” and 42 U.S.C. 1983 allegedly allows Rivera to sue police officers for “participating in the deprivation of his civil rights by carrying out his removal from housing.”
Rivera’s complaint claims that “on or about October 11, 2024 … he observed a group of students peacefully protesting against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Israeli-Occupied Gaza.”
Rivera (pictured) then allegedly “participated in the protest as it was peaceful and occurring in a public place.”
The Maroon notes that during the UChicago United for Palestine protest, photos show Rivera kicking a Chicago PD officer “in the back of the leg.”
The student paper earlier had reported the officer said Rivera also “shoved” him and “str[uck] him with an open hand to the left side of the face.”
According to Campus Reform, the UChicago United for Palestine demonstration had “blocked entry to the university, defaced a sculpture on campus, and damaged police cars.”
The activist group put the blame on law enforcement saying it engaged in a “drastic escalation of police violence,” and referred to campus police as “the university’s agents of brutality.”
UChicago’s student housing contract states it “shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Illinois, without regard to its choice of law principles.” However, the Chicago Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance, which Rivera cites in his complaint, “provides several exemptions.”
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Chicago’s landlord rules makes investments in residential real estate unattractive for landlords.
If the tenant wins, legal fees will be won by the tenant.
If the Chicago landlord applies to U of C, they will need to get their checkbook out and pay the perp.
The excerpt in this post ends with “the Chicago Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance provides several exemptions.”
If you read on in the cited article, the very next paragraph identifies one of these exceptions as… college student housing! So the very ordinance he relies on explicitly says it doesn’t apply. How does this guy not get sanctioned?
moonmoth wrings his hands a lot about places like Mexico and Colombia being wooed and won by the Chinese.
From a lot of evidence I’m seeing here lately, he needn’t worry — they’re already a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hamas.
Kicked him out of student housing? Should have kicked him out of the university.
They did, sort of.
He also alleges that they falsified their records:
If he can prove that he might have some sort of case.
He’s suing under various grounds, so this is not a case-killer, but one of the grounds he’s suing under is Chicago Municipal Code § 5-12-160.
However he seems not to have noticed §5-12-020, which says:
That would seem to blow this particular claim out of the water.
Thanks for the info.
why not expel him ?–his entitlement to “student housing” disappears–end of story
See my comment above. They put him on indefinite involuntary leave. That’s effectively kicking him out.
This lawsuit makes it clear that school was too lenient with him.
They should review the case and expel him from the University!
They put him on indefinite “involuntary leave”, evicted him from the dorm, and gave him a trespass notice for the campus. How is that different from expulsion?