UNC warns professors withholding grades as part of anti-Israel protests

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (TND) — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) threatened punishment Monday for professors who are withholding grades as part of a protest against the school’s investments.

Protesters have demanded the university divest from companies perceived as helping Israel in its war against Hamas terrorists.

All faculty and graduate teachers assistants are required to submit grades by the registrar deadlines, according to Provost Chris Clemens and Graduate School Dean Beth Mayer-Davis.

The provost's office will support sanctions for any instructor who is found to have improperly withheld grades, but is our hope we can resolve this matter amicably and without harm to students,” the office told deans and department chairs.

The university leaders said students depend on their grades for jobs, graduation and athletic eligibility. The end of UNC’s academic year is Friday.

“Excellence in the classroom and in research are a credit to the institution and a vital service to the students and people of North Carolina,” the provost’s office wrote. “It would be a disservice to all of you and to the institution if a minority of instructors were to damage the trust we hold with our students by withholding grades.”

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UNC students have set up encampments to pressure the university into disclosing its investments. The school has tried to dismantle them, alleging they violated state laws and university policies regarding peaceful protests.

No one has the right to disrupt campus operations materially, nor to threaten or intimidate our students, nor to damage and destroy public property,” Interim Chancellor Lee Roberts and Clemens said last week.

The provost office’s letter to department leaders followed a petition signed by more than 800 faculty and staff members demanding the university provide amnesty for student protesters and reopen areas closed off after the demonstrations.

“We denounce the unjust treatment of our students and the administration’s abdication of its responsibility to foster and protect freedom of speech on campus,” the petition read. “We call for accountability for the administrators whose decisions during the protest dishonored the university’s noble traditions of freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and respecting students’ rights to protest.”

The demonstrations at UNC have coincided with other protests taking place at campuses across the country, with students and faculty issuing similar demands to school leaders elsewhere.

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