YPSILANTI — Four students may be expelled after a group participated in a sit-in protest at Eastern Michigan University’s Student Center on Wednesday, Nov. 2. 

The protests began Tuesday night after the racial slur “Leave N*****” was spray-painted outside Ford Hall that Monday. The graffiti was removed immediately. 

Police told protesters that the Student Center closed around 1 a.m. and those who stayed past that time would be in violation of the student code of conduct. When police returned around 2 a.m., they ordered students to leave and told protestors they could be expelled for not leaving. 

Roughly half the protestors stayed until 6 a.m.

The university, “says they support us, but they are threatening to expel us,” Michael Wood, 26, of Ypsilanti, a senior secondary education student, told the Detroit Free Press. “We’ve protested around campus multiple times. They say they support us, but that’s lip service. They feel that if they cut off the head of the group the protests will go away. There’s more than four of us.”

Wood, along with several other protestors, received e-mails from the university, notifying them that they would face disciplinary action.

Several charges brought against Wood included “disruptive behavior, failure to comply and violating policies regarding the use of campus facilities”‘ according to the Free Press. 

At press time, Wood’s hearing was scheduled for 2 p.m. on Thursday. The other three students have already had their hearings. 

“Students are not feeling safe on this campus,” Wood told the Free Press. “This is trauma. We haven’t been heard.”

Not all faculty agreed that punishing students for peacefully protesting, even while it violated the student code of conduct, was the best idea. 

An open letter written by members of the faculty read, “It is simply inconceivable that Black students should find themselves shut out of EMU for peacefully sending a symbolic challenge to racist messages telling them that the university is no place for them.”

School spokesman Geoff Larcom said the students had to receive notices of disciplinary action, because the university cannot decide which policies to follow and which to disregard. 

“It’s the student code,” he said. “You can’t pick and choose.”