Syracuse University graduate student Cai Cafiero is challenging SU’s punishment for her participation in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment (GSE), a campus protest that occupied Shaw Quad, part of the school’s central lawn, for just over two weeks, starting on April 29.
Cafiero is one of several students facing disciplinary sanctions and says she’s pushing back on charges that she calls unclear and “inappropriate.”
At the heart of Cafiero's case is an unsigned letter handed out by SU on May 8, telling students that if they didn’t relocate the encampment they would be in violation of an unspecified University policy. The school wanted to pitch a graduation tent on the Quad.
Cafiero, a doctoral student in SU’s School of Education, was one of the protest organizers and its media liaison. In May she told The Daily Orange, SU’s independent student-run newspaper, that the protesters would consider moving if university officials met with them and responded to their six demands, which included supporting a ceasefire in Palestine and offering amnesty to student protestors.
In the end, the GSE stayed put and SU erected a fence separating commencement events from the encampment. By mid-May the GSE was gone, and organizers sent a statement to the Daily Orange, saying they would continue their organization efforts in the fall semester, without specifying whether that would include another encampment.
On June 13, Cafiero received a letter from SU’s Community Standards office, telling her that she was being accused of violating Section 12 of the University’s Student Conduct Code. The letter referred to allegations that “on or about May 9, 2024, [Cafiero] failed to comply with a university directive to relocate [her] activities to an approved location.”
After two closed-door meetings with Zach Phillips, the conduct officer in charge of her case, she was offered a semester of probation. Students are allowed to negotiate conduct sanctions and Cafiero, citing a clean record, requested a conduct warning instead.
“My conduct officer said that it did not matter that this alleged violation was my first offense,” Cafiero said. “My being on the Quad prevented [students] from having a fulfilling graduation experience and therefore I could not have this lesser sanction.”
WAER sent more than a dozen questions to Phillips and his supervisor at Community Standards and received a reply from SU spokesperson Sarah Scalese, saying that the university, “Won’t be commenting on this story.”
Cafiero's account of the conduct meetings is supported by Mario Rios Perez, an associate professor at SU who is Cafiero's faculty advisor as well as her procedural advisor (PA) in the disciplinary process. A PA is a full-time faculty or staff member or student of the University responsible for helping students navigate the conduct system. As such, Rios Perez is the only person allowed to accompany Cafiero to her informal resolution meetings.
“I am there to…serve in an advisory role,” Rios Perez said, “but I do not have a speaking role.”
He says Cafiero asked her conduct officer how her behavior impacted students, since graduation events were held despite the encampment’s refusal to move. Rios Perez says Phillips didn’t seem “prepared to answer” the question and that “it was more of an argument with no evidence at all.”
Rios Perez says Phillips instead pivoted to discussing the impact the GSE had on SU staff, who allegedly had to work overtime to set up graduation around the protestors.
“Whether that's the case or not, we don't know. And to what degree?” Rios Perez said. “Did they take out more overtime than last year … directly as a result of the protests? They knew quite well in advance that the protest was happening.”
Along with probation, Cafiero is also being asked to research civil disobedience and create a 20-minute presentation on the topic and on “knowingly choosing to engage in a violation of University policy.”
Cafiero said, “They are making me my own judge and jury, which is just a wild take from a university that prides itself on academic freedom.”
The assignment is troubling, says Amy Kristin Sanders, a media and law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, but it doesn’t violate Cafiero’s freedom of speech on campus, because she doesn’t really have any.
“Private universities don't have to follow the First Amendment,” the former prosecutor said. “Students, in many respects, have no free speech rights on a private university, other than those that the university itself is willing to grant them.”
Sanders says private institutions could punish students for expressing themselves, but issuing a conduct violation is “politically less charged.”
“I think there's a hope that they're gonna get less of a reaction, less of an outcry from others in the community, who might view this as targeting a student's particular opinion or perspective,” Sanders said.
The stakes are nevertheless high once a student is on conduct probation. No matter how many years they have spent at their school without incident, even a small violation could lead to immediate suspension or expulsion.
Sanders said, if a university wants to make an example out of a student and goes looking for another infraction, they are bound to find one.
“It’s the same thing as police following behind you to look for a traffic infraction. You’re going to make one,” said Sanders. “You’re going to forget to signal or you’re going to have your tire cross over the centerline inadvertently.”
Jobs can also be on the line for students on probation. Until recently, SU banned them from all leadership positions, including working as a teaching assistant, as Cafiero does. However, new union protections for graduate students means she gets to keep her job and benefits, if the School of Education decides to keep her employed.
Cafiero says she has rejected SU’s probation offer for several reasons: for the fact that she had to choose between a professor who knows her well and a union representative, to serve as her PA; for a presentation assignment that she says “directly violates my academic freedom”; and for a lack of “due process” in the conduct proceedings.
It’s important to note that the conduct system is not a legal proceeding, and is not held to the same standards as the judicial system. Ultimately, a university dictates the standards for evidence and investigations, and who is allowed to participate in the conduct process.
According to Community Standards’ website, students cannot have an attorney serve as their procedural advisor in resolution meetings, which are not and cannot be recorded, or in hearings. However, SU reserves the right to have its own legal counsel “present at any meeting.”
Sanders advises any student called before a conduct hearing to openly hire an attorney, even if their representation has to operate behind the scenes. “Often just the threat of counsel being involved can cause universities to be more transparent about what's happening,” she said.
Having rejected the terms of probation set during her informal resolution meetings, Cafiero has filed a request for a formal hearing before a three-person panel of faculty, staff or students. If it is granted, that hearing and any future appeal would be organized by the same Community Standards office.
