MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The president of West Virginia University estimates as many as a dozen WVU students could end up being expelled from the University for alleged criminal actions in Morgantown following WVU’s upset win over Baylor last weekend.
“I believe very strongly that it’s important for us to love our students and also to make a statement in terms of the way that behavior is dealt with,” Gordon Gee said of the move, this week, to kick out three WVU students before they’d been convicted of any crimes.
Though the expelled students were not being named publicly, University officials confirmed the three were among the 14 people arrested for allegedly throwing items at police officers, bending light poles, setting fires and vandalizing a construction site.
Possible additional expulsions were pending, Gee confirmed, on Friday.
Those expelled do have the option of applying for a hearing with the University.
Other students could face additional sanctions. “The University has a process. It’s a very clear process, in terms of students who engage in misbehavior. We have a student conduct policy and they will be brought before that also,” Gee said.
The goal, he said, is to send a message and change behaviors among some WVU students.
“I think any tradition that is destructive is not a tradition that we want to have at this institution,” Gee said on Friday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”