Students demand an apology from Everette E. Dennis after he allegedly said "go to hell with them" He was responding to concerns raised by the students that their graduation ceremony was scheduled to take place during Ramadan fasting hours DUBAI: Students at Northwestern University in Qatar are demanding an apology from its dean, Everette E. Dennis, after comments he reportedly made about Muslim students. In response to concerns raised by the students that their graduation ceremony was scheduled to take place during fasting hours on the first day of Ramadan, Everette E. Dennis allegedly told a group of about 40 faculty members, “To hell with them.” On Sunday, students staged a silent protest in one of the University buildings on the campus in Doha. In an opening statement, student Farah Al-Sharif said: “For several years, we’ve been mistreated, misspoken to, disrespected and ritually discriminated against by not only multiple faculty members but by our very own dean.” These members of the Northwestern community “are supposed to teach us and shape us as human beings,” Al-Sharif added. Dennis allegedly made the comment during a faculty meeting in January this year, but it only became widely known when Northwestern professor Justin D. Martin tweeted about it on Nov. 2. He said that faculty and students who knew about it were too afraid of the consequences to talk about it publicly at the time. At least one academic is said to have filed an ethics complaint with university authorities shortly after the meeting, which accused the dean of responding to the concerns of Muslim students by saying, “To Hell with our students. Every year they whine about something.” In an official statement posted on the University’s Twitter account, the dean and provost said: “The statements were based on comments and blogs that were made some time ago — from the last academic year to one that was posted 10 years ago. “It grieves us that someone within NU-Q would try to hurt this community that we all have worked so hard to create.”