This post was updated May 5 at 11:10 p.m.

Days after the sweep of the now-dismantled Palestine solidarity encampment, undergraduate and law students question UCLA’s plan to keep most exams in person next week.

Students at the UCLA School of Law are about to enter their second week of finals, and though some professors have moved their exams to take-home, the law school has remained open and running from last week and through May 10.

Jack Perez, a third-year law student and a former Sports editor at the Daily Bruin, said that despite UCLA moving undergraduate classes online for May 3 and 4, law school final exams will continue to proceed as scheduled. He added that he felt uncomfortable that the law school was being treated differently from the rest of the university because of its upcoming graduation May 10.

“Everyone else gets classes off, classes are completely canceled, but they (the law school) still expected us to go to the school,” Perez said.

A BruinAlert sent Sunday said all university classes will remain in person with optional virtual accommodations until Friday, and the law school exams will continue as scheduled.

Perez said he was concerned about the inconsistencies in the level of leniency offered to law students, with some exams being moved online on a professor-by-professor basis.

Perez said one of his professors allowed their exam to be taken at home last week. Since it was announced shortly before the test began, if he had not checked his email before leaving, he would have shown up to the exam in person, he said.

According to the administration’s email sent to law students May 3, exam accommodations can be requested through the Office of Student Affairs.

In an Instagram post Saturday, all eight UCLA Law Journals posted a joint statement urging the law school to cancel all remaining exams and give all students passing grades for the spring semester.

The statement outlines how the law school’s email landed in students’ inboxes the morning after the attacks on the encampment and 40 minutes after the university sent a campuswide class cancellation notification.

The statement expressed solidarity with the Columbia Law Review, who also expressed the need for prioritizing students’ health and safety over grades. Columbia University Law School required all exams to be remote and have the option of a pass/fail grading system.

The statement also said the burden of petitioning for exam accommodations should not fall on individual students in a situation that extends beyond personal adversity.

“Please consider the collective anguish of your students. Immediately cancel all exams and grant passing grades for the spring 2024 semester,” the statement said. “This would be the compassionate response. This would be the just response. The Law School community is watching what you do next, and we hope you choose compassion over the curve.”

A spokesperson for UCLA did not respond in time to Daily Bruin’s request for comment on law school exams.

Phoebe Butler, a second-year biology student, said she emailed her professor to express concern over her midterm Sunday, which had not been canceled. In the email, Butler said she was uncomfortable with the lack of safety she has felt on campus throughout the week and urged the professor to change the structure of the midterm.

Butler said she wrote to her professor after she and around 20 other students in her class GroupMe all agreed that they did not feel comfortable going to campus, asking for the test to be postponed or for there to be a remote option.

In an email response to Butler’s concern, the professor said he shared her concerns and wrote that he felt confident that the midterm would not take place Sunday. However, Butler said the chemistry department turned the professor’s request down, insisting that the midterm take place Sunday as originally scheduled.

Butler said she then sent another email to chemistry department officials, telling them that she has been unable to sleep for days due to her participation in the encampment and the constant helicopter noise outside her window, urging them to provide leniency on midterms.

However, they answered Butler’s email saying that the department would continue to follow university policy, she said. None of Butler’s other midterms were moved, but she did have one class moved to Zoom for the following week, she said.

At its meeting April 30, the Undergraduate Students Association Council voted to sign a letter in support of academic leniency. The letter demands optional in-person or online attendance, recorded class sessions, flexible coursework extension policies and flexible exam policies.

Communication lecturer Michael Suman’s class moved online for week 6, and Suman said he plans to examine what to do with his class on a week-by-week basis.

Suman said he has already rescheduled his midterm after this week, which was originally planned to be held in person. The midterm is now planned to be held online, so he doesn’t risk having to move it again.

The university made an announcement to faculty that they have permission to be online this week but should go back to in-person instruction the following week, unless given permission by the chairman of their department to do otherwise, Suman added.

Suman said several students reached out to him with concerns about the midterm. Some said they did not feel safe being on campus to take the midterm, and others said their parents made them come home so they would not be able to take the midterm in person.

Suman said he preferred to move class online until the campus was calmer.

Rithwik Narendra, a second-year computational and systems biology student, said one of his classes has been moved to Zoom for the remainder of the quarter.

While Narendra said he was initially disappointed to have his class moved to Zoom because of the connections he has made in the class and the accountability that comes along with being in a classroom environment, he said he ultimately understands why the decision was made, as he felt unsafe while studying in a library on campus.

Butler said she initially expected the administration to hold student safety as its main priority when deciding how to proceed with classes. She added that although she understands the challenges with moving classes online, she feels there should be flexibility in the next week for students to do what is best for their mental health.

“Everyone’s mental health is suffering in different ways,” Butler said. “It’s affecting a lot of us in many different ways, and I think that the university should take that into consideration – because they haven’t been at all.”

Narendra said that students, whether they participated in the encampment or not, are under a lot of stress at the moment, and he feels the administration should encourage academic leniency.

“I get the university is offering mental health services through CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services), for example, but I don’t think it’s enough,” Narendra said. “There is a definite connection between mental health, especially after events like these which have been traumatic for a lot of individuals, and academic performance.”