UT Dallas protesters in legal limbo, banned from campus, degrees withheld (2024)

After Mousa Najjar’s name was called during a May graduation ceremony, he stopped in the middle of the stage in front of the audience, raising a Palestinian flag with the words “divest from death” written on it.

He was escorted out of the ceremony soon after by a University of Texas at Dallas administrator and, later, off campus by police officers.

The 22-year-old computer science major was told by officers that he couldn’t be on school grounds because he was violating his bond conditions. Nearly a month later, he has yet to receive his diploma.

Najjar is among the 21 people arrested during a pro-Palestinian protest at UTD on May 1 who remain in legal — and academic — limbo weeks later. Collin County officials have not dropped criminal trespassing charges, according to the attorneys representing the protesters.

“I’m paralyzed with my options,” said Najjar, who was planning on applying to graduate school. Now he’s unsure what’s next as the status of the legal case is unclear and his transcripts and degree are being withheld.

Bill Wirskye, first assistant in the at Collin County district attorney’s office, said the UTD cases are pending and he could not comment further.

Those arrested during the May 1 protest — including students, faculty and people unaffiliated with the university — were released on bail and personal bond conditions that included restricted access to the school.

When Najjar attended his May 15 graduation, he expected the ceremony to be his last activity on campus. He said he didn’t receive clarity on what counted as a class-related activity but noted the ceremony for computer science majors included his name and a set time slot for him to go up on the stage.

John Walls, vice president for communications at UTD, said in a statement that Najjar disrupted the ceremony and was asked to leave.

“Once outside, he was asked to leave campus based on the university’s understanding of his bond conditions,” the statement read.

It was after the ceremony that Najjar learned a hold placed on his university account prevented him from obtaining an official transcript and his bachelor’s degree in science could not be issued until the hold is cleared.

Walls said the university cannot provide further information on holds due to federal student privacy laws.

(The university is a financial supporter of the Education Lab.)

School officials emailed Najjar to invite him to a meeting to discuss his violation of the university code of conduct, but a meeting has not yet been scheduled, he said.

Lawyers for the people who were arrested said protesters were exercising their First Amendment rights and should not face criminal charges.

“In response, the university administration decided to target them, have them wrongly arrested and are now threatening to withhold degrees,” said Aila Irshad, a lawyer with the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

The May 1 protest took place on UTD’s Chess Plaza where students set up an “encampment for Gaza” overnight that included barricades made of wooden pallets, tires and other materials. The students demanded the university divest from companies that manufacture weapons used in the war in Gaza and that UTD officials call for a cease-fire.

Hundreds of officers broke down the encampment and arrested some of the protesters.

Students across the country have rallied against the war in Gaza since Oct. 7. The protests started to escalate when students at Columbia University in New York set up an encampment on a campus lawn. At the University of Texas at Austin, students attempted to set up similar encampments and more than 100 people were arrested over two days in late April.

On May 10, the UTD Faculty Senate passed a measure urging President Richard Benson to demand that the Collin County district attorney’s office drop charges stemming from the campus protest.

When asked about the vote, Walls said, “The university has decided not to intervene in the legal proceedings.”

Ben Wright, an associate professor of history, was one of three faculty members arrested who cannot access campus unless for job-related duties.

Wright was supposed to spend this summer working on a history project for which he was awarded a $480,000 grant. The project, called Open U.S. History Lab, would have undergraduate and graduate students conduct archival research to dive deeper in the history of the United States.

“That was my plan for what I was going to be doing with my summer. Now my plan for what I’m doing with my summer is to try to keep my students from going to jail,” he said.

When state troopers approached the encampment on May 1, Wright and another faculty member tried to speak with them, hoping that dialogue and negotiation could take place to prevent students from being arrested, he said. Instead, Wright was immediately arrested himself.

Wright said he is “dismayed by the lack of leadership shown by the university administration.”

Najjar, president of the campus’ Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, was among nearly a dozen students who locked arms in the middle of the encampment as state troopers and other officers approached to dismantle the setup.

“I felt ashamed to be a student in this university that would call the state troopers on students,” he said. “We were doing it for the greater movement and to stand in solidarity with the people of Gaza.”

The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.

The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.