Ohio State president sued in separate lawsuits for arrests near April encampment protest

A pair of individuals have sued the president of Ohio State University for their arrests near a campus encampment protest in April.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that Ohio State researcher Sumaya Hamadmad and 2021 graduate Curtis Peace have filed two separate lawsuits against President Ted Carter and Police Detective Susan Liu for civil rights infringements stemming from their arrests near the April demonstration on the campus’ South Oval location.

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In a May guest column for The Columbus Dispatch, Hamadmad wrote that on that day in April, she was “defending the very values that drew me to this country.”

”I do not want America to fall into dictatorship because it is my last hope against the specter of authoritarianism,” she wrote.

Hamadmad explained that her “religious rights were violated” during her arrest because her “hijab was taken away,” she was “strip-searched in front of male officers,” and was “denied an iftar meal while fasting.”

The Columbus Dispatch notes that Hamadmad’s legal complaint says she was not involved in the campus encampment, but was “stereotyped because she was wearing a headscarf.”

The outlet also reports that Peace’s lawsuit says he complied with officers that day and was arrested for filming policemen from over 50 yards away. 

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Civil Rights Attorney Ed Forman, who is representing both plaintiffs, reportedly said that the university’s conduct “violates the First Amendment” and that the arrests “were illegal and without probable cause.”

Forman works out of a Columbus-based employment and civil rights law firm called Marshall Forman and Schlein. The firm features a web page that provides guidelines to people who identify as transgender, including how to handle harassment from “persistent misgendering or deadnaming.”