“Why would I speak up? I’m not a student,” said one community member.
Photo by Janice Kim
On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced a commitment to a joint venture with the Navy to close down the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center and open the University of Cuba, Guantanamo Bay (UCGB) campus on the site. The ex-naval base, used to intern suspected terrorists under American control without being subject to American law, was deemed “too costly” to keep open. It was bought by the Department of Education to launch a program intended to create a community where “politically active students thrive on their campus without drawing too much attention.”
PhD student Nasir al-Hajj seemed excited at the prospect of having new peers to talk to. “We’ve got a really inclusive campus here, everyone gets to know each other really slowly, with the walls and such, but after a while we really learn what makes everyone tick.” Al-Hajj said. “Between interro— I mean, lectures, we like to take walks around the quads where the therapy fluffies sometimes like to hop on us and snarl, in a cute way of course.” Al-Hajj started his first year of his PhD in Journalism this year with the inaugural class, but has lived on-campus since 2001 in what is now Freedom Hall.
UCGB will operate on a year-round rolling admissions policy. Chancellor Mishele Moralle revealed she is looking forward to “cultivating the ideal campus.” Moralle stated, “We’re scouting all over the country trying to find the people we think will really take advantage of what we have to offer, whether they like it or not. We’ve sent our best scouters to the most outspoken schools and they’re reporting back some interesting findings. Students who have been offered a position should expect to be picked up off the street in early July.”
University alumnus Melissa Hakam has been an outspoken critic of her alma mater’s choice to work with Israeli companies and directly support the genocide, going as far as to start an encampent during the wave of student protests in mid- 2024. Since then, Hakam has had a hard time finding a graduate school willing to accept her. “Four years and they see nothing but a criminal record,” she said.
Despite being a direct admit student with a full ride scholarship, Hakam said she has some reservations about this new program. Hakam was cited as saying “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!” when she was picked up at 2:30 A.M. outside her Chicago apartment for an all-expenses-paid private tour of the facilities. Hakam was surprised with the Chancellor’s Award, which allows her 30 extra minutes outside between solitary confinement study sessions. At the time of publication, she has been unable to respond to inquiries regarding her plans to continue advocating for Palestine while at UCGB.
Moralle has laid out a plan for becoming a top university and getting ac- credited by using “enhanced studying techniques.” These will include stress-position yoga mindfulness, 36-hour study jams, and waterboarding breath exercises; Moralle boasts that this latter studying technique will “get more air to the brain, where it belongs you know.”
