Felony charges against two pro-Palestinian protesters who were arrested on Xavier University's campus over the weekend have been ignored by a grand jury, according to an update to court documents on the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts website.
Sophia “Soup” Dempsey, an XU student, and XU alum Julia Lankisch, both 22,
faced felony “conspiracy while wearing a disguise" charges stemming from a May 11 arrest for a non-violent pro-Palestinian demonstration outside XU's Cintas Center. The two were slated to go before a grand jury on May 28, but court documents show a grand jury had already ignored the charges just hours after they had been arraigned on May 13. There will no longer be a hearing on May 28,
according to the XU Free Palestine student group .
It is unclear why the grand jury decided to ignore the felony charges. Lankisch and Dempsey still face criminal trespassing charges for allegedly refusing to relocate to the university's designated protest space upon the direction of campus officers.
This story is developing. Continue reading below for the original story from May 13.
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Two pro-Palestinian protesters are facing felony charges for attempting to demonstrate on Xavier University’s campus just hours before a commencement ceremony over the weekend.
The arrests
On Saturday, May 11, Sophia “Soup” Dempsey, an XU student, and XU alum Julia Lankisch, both 22, were arrested by campus police around 7:30 a.m. outside the Cintas Center where a graduation commencement was set to begin a few hours later.
“They were holding a Palestinian flag by this statue, and that was about it,” said Andrew Zolides, an XU professor who also leads Take it On, a university program for civic engagement. “But they weren't making any noise. They were just standing, both kind of holding the flag.”
Dempsey and Lankisch were protesting Israel's ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza, which has left more than 34,000 Palestinians dead since Oct. 7 when Hamas militants killed upward of 1,200 Israelis in a terror attack.
Most recently , the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told reporters on May 8 that forces are conducting a "precise counterterrorism operation in specific areas of eastern Rafah," including "targeted raids,” according to
CNN . Israeli airstrikes hitting Rafah have killed hundreds of civilians since late March, according to
NPR .
Zolides told
CityBeat that Dempsey and Lankisch, the only two protesters there, were approached by campus police within 15 minutes of starting their demonstration. Zolides said he immediately walked over to the scene to offer help.
“I was about 30 or so yards away — because I wasn't a part of the protest; I wasn't organizing; it was them. By the time I got there, they were under arrest,” he said. “Probably from police approaching to being arrested, I would say was probably 60 seconds. Maybe.”
The protesters allegedly declined the option presented by officers to move their demonstration to a university-sanctioned protest stage outside of Husman Hall, which is on the other side of the Cintas Center. Zoliedes isn’t sure when university officials deemed the raised platform in front of Husman Hall fair game for protesters, but he told
CityBeat the location choice from the university appears intentional.
“The entrance to Cintas and Husman stage, there is zero visibility between those,” he said. “They might as well have told them you have to be inside a building and in a closet.”
XU did not respond to
CityBeat ’s direct questions about the arrests by press time, but said in a statement released after the arrests that their officers gave Dempsey and Lankisch
a chance to leave.
“Per our policy, Xavier University Police requested that both individuals relocate to the appropriate demonstration area. After this request was ignored, police notified the two protesters that if they did not relocate, they would be arrested. After the two continued to ignore law enforcement, both were arrested and placed into custody without incident,” the statement reads.
The charges
Dempsey and Lankisch were booked in the Hamilton County Justice Center on Saturday and each charged with trespassing and “conspiracy while wearing a disguise,” a felony charge for wearing medical face masks while protesting.
If the latter charge seems strange, that’s because it is. The Ohio law was created in 1953 in response to ongoing violence by the Ku Klux Klan, saying it is a felony to commit a crime, including misdemeanors, with two or more people “while wearing white caps, masks or other disguise,” according to Ohio Revised Code 3761.12. Ohio is one of 15 states with such anti-mask laws still on the books, according to the Free Speech Center at East Tennessee State University.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost sent a letter to Ohio university presidents on May 6 saying he could use the law in response to recent pro-Palestinian student protests seen across the state.
“I write to inform your student bodies of an Ohio law that, in the context of some behavior during the recent pro-Palestinian protests, could have that effect,” Yost said in his letter.
Violating the “anti-disguise” law is a fourth-degree felony punishable by between six and 18 months in jail, up to $5,000 in fines and five years of probation, according to Yost.
Why are students wearing masks to protests?
Teagan Fowler is an XU student involved in the Xavier University Free Palestine student group, which is not officially sanctioned by the university. She told
CityBeat that Yost’s threats to utilize the '50s anti-mask law does not get to the heart of what makes some campus protests potentially dangerous.
“Most of the protests and encampments for Palestine on U.S. campuses have been peaceful. And if they have escalated to violence, in almost all cases, the protesters have not been the ones to escalate it; the police have,” Fowler said.
Fowler said the masks themselves aren’t necessarily meant to conceal the identities of protesters; they’re also there to protect people in crowded groups.
“Most protests have that etiquette of, if you're going to go somewhere, if you're going to be in a community space with people demonstrating, you never know who's going to be immunocompromised,” she said. “For everybody's safety, you make sure that you either have a mask or wear a mask.”
In the statement released by XU after the arrests, the university mentions how important this graduation ceremony was for students “who missed out on experiencing their high school graduations because of COVID-19.”
Against the backdrop of a commencement ceremony for students who started their college years during the pandemic, the felony masking charges against Dempsey and Lankisch feel like an insult to Fowler.
“These students were wearing COVID masks outside of the graduation of what our own president deemed to be the ‘COVID cohort.’ So that layer of irony is definitely not lost on the Xavier and Cincinnati communities,” Fowler said.
A culture of free expression
In XU’s statement on the arrests, the university also mentions that “free expression” is at the core of Xavier’s mission.
“Xavier also has a nearly 200-year-old commitment to supporting free inquiry and free expression in the pursuit of truth, principles which lie at the very core of our mission and identity as a Jesuit Catholic work, grounded in the liberal arts. As an institution, we wholeheartedly encourage the exchange of diverse ideas and viewpoints as central to the development of the whole person. Further, we are steadfast in creating an environment of Ignatian belonging, where all are encouraged to engage in peaceful assembly for the exchange of ideas,” the statement reads.
Fowler agrees that Xavier has a centuries-old tradition of free expression, which is why she’s shocked to see felony charges against two peaceful protesters.
“This is what the students are called to do,” she said. “This is why people come to Xavier, to carry on this tradition, and to have that tradition be discouraged on such a huge day, on the graduation of a class who has been the backbone of so many social movements, especially in their high school and college years, was almost dystopian.”
The most recent post on
Xavier’s Facebook is a collection of photos from the weekend’s commencement ceremony, with a caption meant to inspire graduates.
“Advice for our grads from St. Ignatius Loyola: Go forth and set the world on fire. Laugh and grow strong. Pray as if God will take care of all; act as if all is up to you.”
Dempsey and Lankisch will face a grand jury on May 28.
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