The University Board of Appeals will hold a hearing Wednesday to re-evaluate the sanction of suspension delivered to Mamoon Darwish (TYP) by the University Board of Student Conduct Feb. 29.At the Feb. 29 hearing, Darwish's suspension was originally deemed to be in effect until May 2009. Darwish has been banned from campus since his arrest.

After he was involved in a fistfight on South Street the night of Feb. 16, Darwish was arrested by University Police for an earlier incident about which neither Darwish or Cohen would disclose any information. These charges were dropped.

"The point of this new hearing is basically for [Darwish] to have a sanction hearing without the Board taking the alleged incident into consideration," said Laura Cohen '09, director of the Student Union's Office of Student Conduct Advisors.

"I believe the suspension will be lifted because part of the reason why he originally got such a harsh punishment for the fight case was because he had already been punished from the alleged incident, and the UBSC was made aware of this," said Cohen,

who has served as an advisor to Darwish throughout the process.

"Students should start questioning the credibility of the people making these decisions and the credibility of Public Safety because they made a wrong decision," Darwish said.

On Feb. 16, the Brandeis Police, serving as Dean of Student Life Rick Sawyer's designee, issued Darwish an emergency suspension, Cohen said.

In February, when Darwish first met with Director of Student Development and Conduct Erika Lamarre, "he indicated that he took responsibility for having some part in the fight," Cohen said.

As a result, Darwish was automatically found responsible for the fistfight, Cohen said.

Following the hearing for the fistfight case, Darwish submitted an appeal. However, according to Cohen, the hearing for the case involving the alleged undisclosed incident needed to be heard before the appeal for the fistfight case.

The hearing for the undisclosed incident was held last Tuesday. Darwish was found not responsible, according to Cohen.

The original punishments Darwish received for this incident, which included academic probation and being banned from the residence halls, were lifted, Cohen said.

However, since suspension supersedes the other two punishments, Darwish is still banned from campus, and therefore is still on academic probation, she said.

According to Darwish, the Board of Appeals reviewed his appeal for the fistfight case on April 11 and accepted it.

"Appealing an administrative decision and then winning the appeal is a big deal because it's something new for the Brandeis community," Darwish said. "It's basically unheard of to win an appeal because 99 percent of appeals get rejected."

"My personal hope is that we get something less than suspension," Cohen said.

She explained that there are several sanctions the Board of Appeals may issue. One possible sanction is disciplinary probation, which would allow Darwish to be enrolled at Brandeis, granted he would not break the any of the University's rules set in Rights and Responsibilities.

Associate Dean of Student Life Maggie Balch would not comment on the case.