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The Aftermath Student activists face unexpected conduct decisions following encampment By Maria DiFelice mldifeli@my.loyno.edu

Student activists Juleea Berthelot and Carson Cruse said they expected punishment from Loyola after being arrested on May 1 during the Tulane encampment. However, they said they didn’t anticipate the unjust obstacles to appealing or postponing their conduct cases. Berthelot, a psychology and sociology double major, said they thought the conduct process that they had to go through was not informative leaving them confused. “It felt very impossible every step of the way,” Berthelot said. “Like we learn something new that just makes our lives even harder.” Fortunately, Berthelot said, they were not alone in the process. They had senior economics major, Carson Cruse, by their side going through the same thing. The two of them were part of the five students met with student code of conduct charges this summer after organizing a pro-Palestine encampment on Tulane’s campus. Loyola and Tulane Students for a Democratic Society organized the encampment. Berthelot and Cruse were the former leaders of Loyola SDS, meaning they faced higher conduct penalties for their leadership compared to other students who received conduct charges, Berthelot said.

Cruse and Berthelot received their preliminary hearing documents from Loyola on May 3, two days after being arrested. Cruse said when he and Berthelot asked to postpone their hearing, the university refused, claiming to the students their hearings had to happen before the start of the school year because of the universities annual conduct report. According to Cruse, they lied to them because the report is not due until October. Dallas Flint, the director of student conduct replied to Cruse’s comment, making it clear the Office of Student Conduct has an annual security report that is anonymized data, but the timing of any student code of conduct hearing and appeals are not dependent on these reports. “I prefer to resolve cases within the same term or academic year to ensure all data is captured for my various endof-year reports,” Flint said. During their hearings, Cruse and Berthelot said they did not speak because they were simultaneously going through a criminal case and did not want anything in their hearing to be used against them in the court of law. “[It’s] an ongoing criminal investigation, right? So we don’t want to provide them with any information that they could potentially provide to the police and to the courts,” Cruse said. “Which we were very certain that they have been cooperating with.”

See AFTERMATH, p.2

Right: Juleea Berthelot speaks to reporters at the Tulane encampment. Isabella Castillo/The Maroon Below: Student protesters resist a police sweep by sitting around the encampment structure with their arms interlocked around 3 a.m. on May 1. SWAT arrested all 11 protesters soon after. Kloe Witt/The Maroon