AMHERST — Hampshire College increased campus police presence and issued a collegewide warning on Monday after suspending a student, saying that a threat had been made against members of the campus community.
But the student and his allies are presenting an altogether different narrative, taking to social media to accuse the school of unnecessarily throwing a homeless student, who is on the autism spectrum, onto the street before a snowstorm.
Iris Allen, a music student in his first semester at the college, was suspended on Monday for violations related to civil behavior and disruption, failure to comply and threatening and intimidating behavior, according to a copy of Allen’s outcome letter from Hampshire that he provided the Gazette. The outcome letter makes reference to “threats of violence.”
“As you know, you were presented most recently with a behavior contract in which you specifically agreed that you would refrain from any further inappropriate conduct, including threatening behavior and/or using words, actions or implied threats that may generate reasonable fear in another person,” the letter reads. The latest incident, it concludes, constitutes a failure to comply with that contract.
“Because I have a tough background, I’m more prone to panic attacks,” said Allen, saying only that he raised his voice when speaking to campus officials. “Unfortunately, they were misconstruing my panic attacks as misbehaving.”
University spokesman John Courtmanche declined to comment on Allen’s case, citing federal privacy laws. Campus police incident logs from last week show that police responded to a “threat to commit a crime” on Wednesday, though no other details were publically available.
“Blatant racism,” Allen, who is black, responded on Facebook to the college’s campuswide alert sent out on Monday.
Allen said that he grew up in Malden and has been chronically homeless since he was a teenager. A friend has paid for him to stay in the Hampton Inn in Hadley until Friday, Allen said.
After Friday, however, Allen said he doesn’t know what he’ll do. He said he doesn’t have any parents to help him, and has nowhere to go. Friends and others on campus have rallied to his side, however, raising nearly $4,000 online as of Tuesday afternoon to help Allen.
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.