North Carolina Central University intensifies its protracted assault and repression of students on campus.

One of the Durham 5 defendants, a current sophomore who was brutally attacked by campus police officers during last spring’s student-led housing protest, is now being forcibly removed from their dorm with just seven days' notice, rendering them homeless, and suspending them for an undisclosed time period. All of this is occurring while criminal charges are actively being pursued against them as well as the rest of the Durham 5 defendants.

With no housing and no family local to Durham, there is no way for them to continue their studies on campus. This calculated act of repression is nothing less than a covert expulsion and punishment for exercising their constitutional right to peacefully protest. This is a similar underhanded tactic the university employed against a professor who was also illegally arrested at the speak-out rally. The university suspended them indefinitely and restricted their access to campus, effectively firing them but too cowardly to do so outright.

The administration's response to student activism has been to sanction and legitimize a long history of blatant police brutality against Black people. Rather than address the housing crisis or hold these police officers accountable for their vicious assault on students.

Each of the five illegal arrests that day were caught on camera, and carried out with the assistance of the majority-white UNC police department. The administration is not only pursuing criminal charges against its own students but also disciplinary evictions and suspensions for daring to bring awareness to the university’s gross negligence, and complacency to the needs of the student body.

Student organizers have been historically suppressed by the same institutions that claims to promote educational freedom of expression and safety, and North Carolina Central University is no exception to this historical phenomenon. In fact, North Carolina Central University’s actions against students further emphasize this trend of suppression and repression, which highlights the overarching problem of state repression of community organizers and organizations.

We refuse to allow this courageous student to face this unjust prosecution by the North Carolina Central University administration alone. We call on students, professors, and community members to stand in support of the Durham 5 in continuing their academic ventures.

First a victim of police brutality, now being evicted. Help an NCCU student and Durham 5 defendant secure housing for the semester. DONATE NOW.