Xavier University’s administration must decide if it will live up to the school’s Jesuit values.
This will become clear when students step back onto campus in a few days with unanswered questions. On May 11, two hours before Xavier’s commencement ceremony, my friend Soup and I were arrested for protesting the institution’s investments in large-cap equity companies such as HP and Caterpillar, whose surveillance and demolition technologies, respectively, have been instrumental in the genocide and displacement of Palestinians. About $40 million of the university’s endowment is invested in corporations of this size, such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft. These companies have colluded with and enabled Israel's government on such weaponry and settlement efforts as Project Nimbus, which provides public cloud computing services to the Israeli Defense Forces and government. According to the Lancet, which is among the highest impact peer-reviewed medical journals, a conservative estimate of the death toll in Gaza as of July 5, 2024, is 186,000 people. Palestinian health, education and food production infrastructure are being deliberately destroyed, and the people are being intentionally subjected to preventable starvation and disease by the Israeli government.
I was shocked and deeply disappointed that the school from which I had received a minor in Peace and Justice Studies, the school that taught me to serve others and promote the common good, would detain me for attempting to live up to the very values it espouses. I learned in my Challenge of Peace course about activists who have sacrificed personal comfort and safety to make a positive impact in systems of oppression. I learned that one of the most impactful ways to vote is with your dollars. This protest was meant to hold the university I believed in accountable; to encourage ethical investing behavior from people who speak of peace and equity. To me, it feels as though there was never any intention to hear us out, but to be Jesuit is to commit to learning, educating and acting for justice, as Jesus would.
The protest itself lasted around two minutes. I answered a call to action I had seen on Instagram from a group called XU Free Palestine to respectfully display information about Xavier’s investments outside of commencement two hours before it began. The flyer was very explicit about not being disruptive or overly controversial, and asked attendees to wear medical masks due to the large volume of people that would be present. When I got there, I saw a friend I had met on a university-sponsored leadership immersion trip standing alone holding a Palestinian flag, already surrounded by police. He was out of the way, but visible to the people walking in the front doors of the Cintas Center. I ran over because I was concerned for my friend and picked up the flag with him. We were arrested for refusing to move to a “designated protest area” across campus. There is a large amount of open space and several buildings between that area and the Cintas Center that would have prevented us from being seen or heard by commencement attendees. It seems the administration is interested in pacification of criticism and the appearance of order, not genuine dialogue.
Xavier’s police department Chief Warfel had already made up his mind to arrest protesters who did not comply. He said so clearly in an email to administrators the night before: “They will be arrested and transported to the Hamilton County Justice Center for trespassing and other appropriate charges…the Sedler plaza is to remain an area designated for the graduates and their families without the presence of a protest, whether peaceful or not.” He and his colleagues charged me with a felony, which would mar my public record and vastly reduce my career options.
That charge was based on a statute from the 1950s, called the Prohibition Against Conspiracy in Disguise Act. It was passed to deter the Klu Klux Klan from engaging in criminal activity with caps and masks on. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost made university administrators and police chiefs aware that this archaic law was still in place, but I had no idea it existed or that I was being charged under it until after I got out of jail. Thankfully, a grand jury chose to ignore the felony charge on the day I was arraigned, but I still spent several days in court on misdemeanor trespassing charges. Now when potential employers search my name on the web, they will find article upon article about my arrest and felony charge. Xavier also released several factually incorrect public and internal statements describing the events of the day and misrepresenting my intentions, going so far as to brand me as “unaffiliated” with the university.
This, from my alma mater whose mission is “to educate each student intellectually, morally and spiritually.” It also frequently declares its intention to foster “an inclusive environment of open and free inquiry.” Rather than support students and alumni who choose to live out these values, however, Xavier’s administration punished us. Soup and I spent 13 hours in jail cells without toilet paper, water or soap. I did not know what the felony charge being brought against me was, and no one would answer my questions. A judge ordered me to stay away from the campus I called home for four years until the issue was resolved. Xavier introduces the Jesuit idea of cura personalis, or caring for the whole person, during freshman orientation. I certainly did not feel as though my human dignity was recognized on May 11 as I was counting the minutes and scratching paint off of the freezing cold concrete in jail.
In a statement emailed to faculty and staff the day after I was arrested, President Colleen Hanycz accused university protesters across the nation of lacking interest in dialogue, diverse perspectives and a desire to build rational knowledge. When her students offered a silent and respectful, one-minute-long display of solidarity with an oppressed people, however, she sanctioned our arrest. Further, several members of administration were offered mediation and de-escalation aid before and during the protest by Xavier’s “Take It On” initiative, which aims to foster dialogue between people with differing political ideas, and they refused it.
Xavier’s new branding under Dr. Hanycz is full of references to the Jesuit notion of “Magis,” meaning “the more.” Magis asks us to act more justly, more thoughtfully, more compassionately – to discern and follow a path that will create a more universal good. But when a peaceful protest calling for divestment from genocide finds its way onto campus, it seems the administration of my alma mater chose the easy option: to offend as few wealthy investors as possible. Is this “the more” that Xavier is striving for? Maybe so, given that its long-term debt total reached $181 million in 2022.
Living out Jesuit heritage requires service rooted in justice and love. It requires solidarity with those whose voices do not echo as loudly as ours across the world stage. The Jesuit thing to do when members of the Xavier community encourage others to reflect on these facts is to reflect with them, not attempt to upend their futures with a felony charge in the name of “order.” A truly Jesuit institution would not, in the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “prefer a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”
I spent my time in jail and in court wondering how the institution that taught me the value of love, justice and advocacy could be so uncomfortable with activism in support of those tenets. How the people who inspired me to feel radical empathy for those unjustly persecuted could so swiftly attempt to shut down efforts asking them to do the same. I know I am not alone in my concerns about the university’s financial and educational investments, never mind feeling abandoned and misrepresented by its administration. I have lost a support network and a home.
Dr. Hanycz, I wish you had meant what you said to us at graduation: “Go forth and set the world on fire… act as if all is up to you.”
Julia Lankisch is an alumna of Xavier University with degrees in environmental science and music. She is currently a student at Colorado State University working toward a master's degree in conservation leadership.
