HANOVER — Two weeks since a pro-Palestinian sit-in in Dartmouth’s main administration building, tensions between student activists and college officials continue to boil.

Last week, six students initiated a hunger strike demanding the college’s Board of Trustees approve a divestment proposal they had submitted. The hunger strikers also are demanding the college lift suspensions placed on student activists Jordan Narrol, who was set to graduate this weekend, and Roan Wade, who has two semesters remaining.

“Dartmouth staff are engaging with any student known to be participating in the hunger strike regarding their health and well-being, which remains our top priority,” college spokesperson Jana Barnello said about the strike. She declined to comment on the students’ demands. 

The students on hunger strike, including Wade, are only consuming water and electrolytes, Wade said.

With the exception of Wade who is barred from the Dartmouth campus, hunger strikers are spending part of their days in the lobby of Baker-Berry Library.

College officials have visited them several times to check on their well-being, senior Grey Xiao, a spokesperson for the strikers, said.

The decision to stage a hunger strike ahead of this weekend’s commencement ceremonies when alumni and families will be on campus was intentional, Xiao said. They hope that the hunger strike will create “high visibility and pressure” on the administration. The students will remain in Hanover through graduation “to varying degrees” and plan to keep up the strike until their demands are met.

“Even though some of us are graduating, the student movement is strong and will always continue until we divest from Israel and there is a free Palestine,” Xiao said

Xiao declined to say whether they were at the May 28 sit-in.

In addition to the strike, an online petition that calls for Dartmouth to lift the suspensions on the two students has garnered over 500 signatures.

On May 28, about a dozen students staged a sit-in in the lobby of Dartmouth’s Parkhurst Hall which houses President Sian Leah Beilock’s office. The sit-in was a response to the college rejecting a divestment proposal that demands Dartmouth cut ties with aerospace and defense companies that manufacture supplies used by Israel in the conflict in Gaza.

After the sit-in, the administration alleged in a campus-wide letter that protesters were “confrontational.” Two staff members were injured by protesters who attempted to force their way into Beilock’s office and steal files, the college maintains. Protesters alleged in a letter and on social media that it was a staff member who injured a student.

“There was no ‘property damage,’ and there were no threats of harm to speak of,” they wrote.

Journalists and outside observers were not permitted inside the building which went into lockdown mode for several hours. No arrests were made and Hanover police were not called to the scene, Chief James Martin told the Valley News.

When asked how many students were facing disciplinary action or what types of action the college is pursuing, spokesperson Barnello said “federal law prohibits Dartmouth from discussing individual student sanctions.”

Wade and Narrol have stated publicly that they were suspended by Dartmouth. Both students said in interviews that they were placed on immediate, temporary suspension meaning that the sanctions are ongoing, pending hearings that have not been scheduled. They are both banned from all Dartmouth-owned or affiliated properties.

According to college policy, this kind of suspension is reserved for students who present a “significant risk to the safety or educational environment of the community.” Under typical circumstances, students would be given a hearing before being suspended. Both students maintain that they should have been afforded this right.

At the time of the sit-in, both students were already on probation for their alleged involvement in a small encampment in front of Parkhurst Hall on May 1.

Narrol said she received an email last Thursday telling her to show up for a meeting at the college’s Department of Safety and Security for a meeting. At the meeting, Narrol learned she’d been suspended. She was escorted to her dorm to collect “essential items” and ordered off campus. The college gave her one night’s stay in a hotel. Since then, she has been staying at the home of a Dartmouth community member who is currently out of town.

“I’m lucky enough that others in the Dartmouth community have helped support me,” Narrol said. She also was on a meal plan and said she is now receiving food through a support network built by protesters.

Still, Narrol who was supposed to graduate, said it has been “really isolating” staying at a home by herself and upsetting to not be able to celebrate her graduation and spend her last week of college with friends on campus. Being banned from Dartmouth-affiliated properties has also created issues with getting her medication and access to health care.

“This is crazy, there was zero due process here,” Narrol said.

Narrol maintains that she was not at the Parkhurst sit-in, but said the college told her they have a video that shows she was present and responsible for an unspecified injury to a Dartmouth safety and security officer. Narrol said that she is not the student in the video. The students at the sit-in were wearing kaffiyeh, a traditional Arab headdress, over their faces and heads.

Narrol had finished all of her classes for her final semester when she was suspended. Initially, she said the college withdrew her from classes so she would not earn credits, but after an appeal she was allowed to finish her final exams off campus.

The college will withhold her degree pending the results of a hearing that will likely be in July. If the Committee on Standards rules against her, the college could withhold her degree for an unspecified amount of time. If the committee opts to expel her she will not receive her degree.

Wade said they were suspended and trespassed from the college via a phone call on the night of the sit-in. Wade’s request for an appeal was denied and they will not receive credit for classes completed this semester. They are awaiting a hearing to determine the extent of their punishment.

In an interview, Wade declined to say whether they were at the sit-in.

Since being ordered off campus, Wade’s “housing situation (is) extremely unstable” and they have lost their on-campus job, access to medication and meal plan.

Despite the uncertainty, Wade would still like to earn a degree from Dartmouth but will not stop protesting.

“If it’s a matter of getting a degree or compromising my morals or principles, I’m not going to compromise my principles,” Wade said.

Clare Shanahan can be  reached at cshanahan@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.