We are writing you today as a group of UVA and Charlottesville community members deeply concerned by the decision to deny the request for appeal of the No Trespass Order (NTO) that was issued to Mustafa Abdelhamid, a nursing student at Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC), in conjunction with his presence at the student anti-war protests on May 4. As part of his program, Mr. Abdelhamid was planning to attend a summer-long nursing externship at UVA Health, beginning on May 28, that he will be unable to commence if his NTO remains in place. Further, in the Fall, he has mandatory rotations at UVA Health that he will be unable to complete if the NTO remains in effect. Indeed, given that his program relies on a partnership between PVCC and UVA Health, the NTO has jeopardized his ability to complete his course of academic study. We implore you to remove the restriction immediately so that he can continue his important work without hindrance.

Mr. Abdelhamid is, to our knowledge, the only person issued an NTO on May 4 whose appeal has been denied. The rescission letters that all other appellees received stated that the purpose of the NTO was “to mitigate the threat to health and safety” to the UVA campus, and that given that there was no longer any such threat in their cases, the NTOs would be rescinded. Mr. Abdelhamid is a model citizen of our community. A recent immigrant and political asylee from Egypt, he has been a straight-A student at PVCC. Indeed, so impressive has Mustafa’s work and leadership been that he was recently awarded PVCC’s Distinguished Student Award (https://www.pvcc.edu/20th-annual-academic-and-leadership-awards-convocation) “the highest award presented by the College to a student who demonstrates exemplary service or leadership at the College.” Moreover, Mustafa is an exemplary Charlottesvillian and a valued member of the Islamic Society of Central Virginia, a local mosque whose membership is largely made up of UVA faculty, staff, and students, as well as doctors at UVA hospital. Are we really to believe that this person is a threat to the UVA community?

We are deeply concerned that you have not concluded that Mr. Abdelhamid is no threat to our university community, as you did with the other appellees, and we wonder why he is being singled out. As UVA and Charlottesville community members committed to equity, we are alarmed that he is being targeted in this way. During the peaceful protests of May 4, we observed the way in which a group of students standing up for Palestinian lives, the majority of whom were Black and brown, were the object of grossly disproportionate police violence. We are concerned that Mr. Abdelhamid’s singling-out here may be indicative of a larger pattern wherein threat is assessed on the basis of identity rather than deed.

A person of deep conscience and kindness with a lifelong commitment to service to humanity, through the field of medicine, Mr. Abdelhamid is being shown a very ugly side of this country – one in which rules are applied in uneven manners, acts of peaceful protest are met with the barrels of assault rifles, and chants for the end to war are suppressed by pepper spray. That UVA should seek to punish a beloved member of the Charlottesville community – a Middle Eastern immigrant and asylee who has worked hard to eke out a future in this country – is truly unconscionable, and flies in the face of everything for which our university ought to stand.

Mr. Abdelhamid is working to join the nursing community at a time when our country faces a shortage of trained nurses. His skills, background, and dedication to his community will be an asset to Charlottesville, and especially to its Arabic-speaking refugee communities, who often face difficulties in trying to navigate the health system. The punitive measures taken against him will further damage the relationship the university has with its surrounding communities, with whom it has struggled to connect throughout its history. We ask that you remove Mr. Abdelhamid’s NTO immediately so that he may continue his studies and contribute to our community in the ways he has intended.