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The University of Rochester has suspended a student for attending unsanctioned pro-Palestinian protests, the university’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine said this week.
Kenneth MacInTyre-Beiter, a third-year student involved in advocacy and student government, identified himself as the suspended student Monday on Instagram.
He received a hearing notice Feb. 20 alleging he violated the university’s code of conduct by participating in two unsanctioned pro-Palestinian protests, including one that disrupted the school’s annual Boar’s Head dinner. The December protest urged the university to drop the felony charges against four students alleged to have distributed “wanted” posters of faculty and staff across campus.
The university alleges MacInTyre-Beiter violated the school’s Demonstrations, Vigils, and Peaceful Protests policy, issued in August 2024, which requires students and organizations to authorize all demonstrations with the university at least three days in advance. The policy also imposes time, place and manner restrictions on protests, and the school alleges MacInTyre-Beiter violated these restrictions by holding an amplifier at a January protest.
“I think that the suspension was really unjust, even outside of considering the protest policy and the code of conduct,” MacInTyre-Beiter claims. “I really don’t think that I broke the code of conduct. They based their argument off of the (Demonstrations, Vigils, and Peaceful Protests) policy that was newly implemented.”
According to UR spokesperson Sara Miller, the results of student conduct cases are handled fairly, in line with published processes, while effectively addressing actions that are found to violate applicable policy and preserving a safe campus environment.
“With regard to investigations into possible violations of the DVPP policy,” says Miller, “cases are addressed in a consistent manner and have been since the establishment of the policy in July 2024 when the University thoughtfully revised its policies related to free expression and campus activism.”
The university’s conduct process involves an initial and pre-hearing conference before a formal conduct hearing. Accused students can also submit an appeal regarding their hearing within seven days of receiving a final decision. MacInTyre-Beiter plans to appeal his suspension, claiming his Feb. 28 hearing featured biases that prevented a fair trial.
“I think (the university) made some significant errors in the (conduct process) that I think warrants in overturning my suspension in the appeal,” MacInTyre-Beiter claims. “I mentioned in my appeal that I believe multiple members of the hearing board shouldn’t have heard my case, or at least they shouldn’t have been involved in the decision-making process at the end of it, due to the way that they acted during the case, during the hearing and beforehand.”
MacInTyre-Beiter says he perceived a bias against pro-Palestinian activism during the process, along with a lack of transparency within the conduct process that he claims significantly impacted his ability to argue for himself.
“They claim that the conduct process is supposed to be restorative and educational,” he says. “That’s a quote from the Code of Conduct. But a suspension kind of does the opposite of restoring or educating me. And I think it’s deeply disproportionate to any of my actions.”
This is not the first time the university has suspended students for involvement in pro-Palestinian advocacy. MacInTyre-Beiter previously had been at risk of suspension for his involvement in last year’s Wallis Hall sit-ins, and four of the students accused in the “wanted” poster case were recently suspended or expelled.
Yet MacInTyre-Beiter points to the Trump administration as a driving factor behind the university’s decision in his case.
“My suspension did come on the same day Trump posted on Truth Social… along the lines of how he’s going to revoke federal funding from universities that don’t punish students for partaking in pro-Palestine protests,” MacInTyre-Beiter states.
On March 4, the president threatened to withhold federal funding for any college or university that allows “illegal protests.” Three days later, the Trump administration announced the cancellation of approximately $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University due to alleged “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”
“I don’t necessarily think it’s a coincidence that I was suspended eight hours after Donald Trump posted that online,” MacInTyre-Beiter claims. “And I do think it’s in line with what we’re seeing at some other universities, especially Columbia.”
In response to his suspension, the university’s chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace released a statement Monday claiming the regulations established in the Demonstrations, Vigils, and Peaceful Protest policy were implemented without input from students or clearly articulated rationale.
“As we watch the current administration launch its campaign of fear to suppress campus activism, we must stand firm in our commitment to protecting our rights to free speech and expression,” the statement reads. “The University bears a responsibility to prioritize student wellbeing over currying favor with federal funding sources.”
The suspension places MacInTyre-Beiter’s academic efforts in jeopardy as a biomedical engineering student in the Graduate Engineering at Rochester program, a five-year program providing master’s degrees to eligible students without a GRE requirement. MacInTyre-Beiter also plans to pursue a double major in political science.
“I’m hoping that they overturn the suspension based on what I have in the appeal,” MacInTyre-Beiter explains. “I think my arguments are correct. And this is the system that they kind of have built in for this. So I’m using it.”
Narm Nathan is a former Rochester Beacon intern.
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This isn’t about this student or his actions during the protest. This is about Trump terminating grants to Columbia over a different Palestinian protest and the U of R wanting to protect their own government grants. And that my friends is the government infringing on free speech.
U of R, elite Ivy League academia at $60,000 a year plus. Maybe more? Pre-clearance to exercise the First Amendments rights of free assembly and non-violent protest. Many may say that private entities are not restricted, that speech and protest is protected from government interference. Like most, they receive government funding and to receive such funding Civil Rights laws and First Amendment rights apply, until now. Will funding be protected if Black and liberal authors are not banned from the library? Will the administration in Washington exact penalties if grad students, after more than nine months, are ALLOWED their rights to a union and collective bargaining? The same for health care workers?
There was a famous movie where a young man remembers his father telling him, pointing to his head, it does not matter what you have here, if while then pointing to his heart, if you don’t have it here. The cost of an education at the U of R, or any cost, is not worth the price of an institution run by cowards.