UConn Students Expelled for Championship Celebration Vandalism

Several University of Connecticut students who were arrested for vandalizing the campus following the school’s victory in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament championship game have been expelled.

On April 3, after UConn beat San Diego State to capture the fifth men’s basketball national championship in program history, 16 students were hospitalized and 15 were initially arrested in connection to celebrations on the Storrs campus. A few more arrests took place in subsequent weeks. Those arrested were accused of smashing windows, damaging a police cruiser, flipping over a van and vandalizing light posts, according to Justin Muszynski of The Hartford Courant, and most of them also were charged with rioting.

“The cases are in various stages,” UConn spokesperson Stephanie Reitz said, via Muszynski. “Although we can’t address individual students’ outcomes, we can say that some reviews have concluded with expulsions, while others remain either under investigation or are scheduled for hearings that have not yet occurred.”

Reitz added the school will announce the exact number of expulsions sometime during the summer, as the investigation is still ongoing. Of those who were arrested, the majority were students, but a few of the offenders did not attend UConn.

After the initial wave of arrests in early April, Reitz made it clear that most of the fans celebrating did so in a peaceful manner, and it was just “a small number” who took the celebration too far.