The American Civil Liberties Union is representing five Towson University students who say their First Amendment rights were violated in response to an Israel-Hamas war protest on campus.

The ACLU sent a letter to university officials Monday asking them to expunge the students’ disciplinary records. The students were found guilty of violating university policy and the student code of conduct. They received deferred suspensions, a suspension that remains on their record for seven years but allows them to attend class.

“Towson University’s effort to silence these students violates their free speech rights guaranteed to them by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and has chilled the students’ ability to hold other demonstrations out of fear of retaliation from the university,” Nick Taichi Steiner, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Maryland, wrote in an 11-page letter to university President Mark Ginsberg.

A Towson University spokesperson said in a Tuesday statement that the student conduct process is complete, adding, “We look forward to the opportunity to discuss with the ACLU the facts of the matter.”

“During the spring semester, gatherings or demonstrations were held on campus, sharing varying viewpoints while in alignment with university policies. As we prepare for the start of a new academic year, we look forward to continuing to foster a campus where all perspectives are welcome,” the statement reads.

Two of the five disciplined students did not participate in the Nov. 15 “die-in” demonstration, according to the ACLU, which said one was cleaning up after the protest and another was photographing it. Fewer than 10 students lay in the grass at Tiger Plaza surrounded by baby dolls wrapped in white shrouds to represent the rising death toll of children in Gaza, according to the letter.

A protester read a poem into a megaphone and recited the names of people killed in Gaza during the demonstration, which was organized by the Towson Colonized People’s Revolution. University police and administrators told protesters to leave and protest at the free speech zone “on the outskirts of campus, even threatened arrest if they did not leave,” Steiner wrote.

College campuses have been the center of community protests against the war, with encampments popping up across the country. A pro-Palestine encampment at the Johns Hopkins University was dismantled after two weeks of protests.

Students have the right to protest on their campus, and the university’s jurisdiction that the protests had to occur within “free speech zones” is not a legal reason for disciplining the students, Steiner said. The ACLU called on university officials to review their policies and refrain from future First Amendment violations ahead of the next school year.

The disciplined students had to complete a research paper about how to form a student organization and abide by the code of conduct to avoid being suspended immediately. They appealed the disciplinary decision, and the university’s appellate board upheld the punishment for all except one student, who received probation instead of deferred suspension.

Towson Colonized People’s Revolution did not protest for the rest of the year, Steiner wrote.

“We hope that our concerns about TU’s policies, and the discipline imposed in this case can be resolved without the need for litigation, but we are prepared to bring suit,” he said.