U. Washington Seeks to Hold Students Accountable After Anti-Israel Occupation Protest

U. Washington Seeks to Hold Students Accountable After Anti-Israel Occupation Protest

How about good old expulsion? That would end this pretty quickly.

Campus Reform reports:

UW proposes tougher conduct rules year after pro-Palestinian occupation

The University of Washington (UW) in Seattle is proposing new student conduct rules that would allow it to discipline students who refuse orders to leave university property and hold students responsible for assisting or planning prohibited conduct.

The proposed revisions come more than a year after the May 2025 pro-Palestinian occupation of UW’s Interdisciplinary Engineering Building, although the university does not state that the incident prompted the changes.

The university filed the proposed revisions on July 20, with an intended adoption date of Sept. 9. UW describes the changes as a comprehensive update to its student conduct regulations.

The proposed rules would allow UW to discipline students who remain inside a university building or on university property after a university official or law enforcement officer issues a lawful order to leave.

Students who remain could also face responsibility for prohibited conduct committed by others, even if they did not directly participate in that conduct.

The proposal would also change UW’s definition of vandalism. Instead of prohibiting only malicious damage, the revised language would prohibit intentionally or recklessly damaging, defacing, destroying, or misusing university property or the property of others.

Another revision would allow students to face discipline for assisting another person or group in prohibited conduct, requesting or inciting prohibited conduct, participating in its planning, or attempting to commit prohibited conduct.

The proposed rules would also permit the university to consider whether a student concealed their identity to evade discovery or identification while engaging in prohibited conduct when determining a sanction.

The proposal would additionally change the appeals system, including expanding the pool of potential appeal officers.

The changes come more than a year after 33 people were arrested during the May 2025 occupation. King County prosecutors filed 33 first-degree criminal trespass cases on March 3. A first-degree criminal trespass is a gross misdemeanor. The occupation caused approximately $1 million in damage.

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