One hundred faculty members at the University of California at Irvine have sent a letter to a local district attorney calling on him to drop the criminal charges he filed last week against 11 students for disrupting a speech on the campus last year by the Israeli ambassador to the United States. “The students were wrong to prevent a speaker invited to the campus from speaking and being heard,” the letter says. But the university punished both the students and the Muslim Student Union, which was suspended, and those campus penalties should be considered sufficient punishment, the letter says. The faculty members also accused the district attorney of setting “a dangerous precedent for the use of the criminal law against nonviolent protests” on the campus.
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12 Responses to UC-Irvine Faculty Urges Prosecutor to Drop Charges Against Students
wmartin46 - February 9, 2011 at 3:38 pm
> The faculty members also accused the district attorney of setting
> “a dangerous precedent for the use of the criminal law against
> nonviolent protests” on the campus.
It’s hard to find any evidence of criminal law being used in the case of “violent protests” on campuses. If “the law” is not applied to everyone equally, and uniformly .. what good is “the law”?
22228715 - February 9, 2011 at 3:47 pm
The faculty group’s rationale is faulty. University conduct systems generally are not in place to be punitive, but rather to provide educational nudges or pushes toward a norm, and to hold students accountable to the standards of the university community. Criminal charges, by contrast, measure the behavior of an individual against the standards of the larger community (city, state, country) and include punishment more prominently as a tool for accountability. Although the “dangerous precedent” comment seems to hold some water, the initial premise belies a basic misunderstanding of the two conduct response processes.
22259152 - February 9, 2011 at 4:38 pm
Actions of students have consequences beyond the classroom and the university. Student status should not be used as a shield to protect conduct on campus from off campus consequences. It will set a dangerous precedent for conducting violent protests on campuses.
_perplexed_ - February 9, 2011 at 4:44 pm
“…the university punished both the students and the Muslim Student Union, which was suspended…”
The brief suspension of the Muslim Student Union as a student organization is well-reported, but I have seen no report of specific sanctions taken against any of the individual students. Has this been reported anywhere?
rmelton5 - February 9, 2011 at 5:46 pm
Just agreeing with others above. Students at a campus, especially since many of them may not be from the local area, need to be made aware of the fact that their behavior has more than campus-wide repercussions. Being a member of a campus community doesn’t absolve one from one’s inevitably being a resident within a civil jurisdiction as well.
henr1055 - February 9, 2011 at 7:27 pm
They should have had a rep from the Muslim Student association explain how in 1949 thousands of Jews whose ancesters had lived in Europe and the Russian Steppes for 2000 years decided to return to Palestine, and steal the houses and lands of the people who had lives there for the interveining 2000 years and before. They might also mention how Menachem Begin and his buddies murdered 500 British Officers while they slept so they could further steal everything from the Palestinians. But of course they did not have to leave they could stay in their own land, start from scratch and have no rights of citizenship. They might also tell how the Zionist Airforce bombed the USS Liberty an unarmed Communication Ship so that no one would know they were attacking their neighbors. This information has been suppressed from the next generation by the Zionist press and the Zionists which also control and fund some prominant members of Congress. When these issues are presented on a campus there should be equal time for both sides to express their opinions. They might also show certain facts such as no Jews were ever held captive in Egypt, the Jews did not build the Pyramids or the Temple of Karnak or anything else in Egypt. Once we get the air cleared of the fairy tails we might have a more even handed approach to the Zionists and the Palistinians. And dont try to tell me there was no such thing as a Palistinian until the Zionists arrived. Thats total BS. Read your fairy tales in the old testament. You can also look at maps of the old Arab and Turkism Empires. That land has always been called Palestine. The Zionists are just an occupying force and currently running their own Holocaust.
TH
TH
22228715 - February 10, 2011 at 7:40 am
Agreed that citizens who are students should not be shielded from the law, and that they should be held accountable by the local authorities in the same ways that they would for other citizens. Too, they should not be discriminated against by their student status, and should not face targeting or more strict legal oversight than other citizens.
lgoldste - February 10, 2011 at 9:28 am
_perplexed_ – There would not be any report of specific actions taken against the students because their student records are protected by FERPA. Student organizations are not protected by FERPA because they represent the group rather than an individual academic record.
chandrak - February 10, 2011 at 10:52 am
These students have violated the Constitution of the United States –Free Speech. They should be punished for their behavior. Laws should be enforced equally to all people. Muslims should follow the laws and regulations of the United States just like others.
missoularedhead - February 10, 2011 at 11:43 am
I personally find the DA’s choice to file criminal charges chilling. Whether or not we agree with the students’ conduct (I am reminded of a time when yelling at a someone and turning one’s back was tame), the DA in Orange County’s decision to file criminal charges inflames an already problematic campus climate, and it sends a very scary message to students that if we don’t like what you do, we (the adults) will make sure you don’t do it again.
Were any of you there? I was. And while I found their behavior rude and juvenile, there were no death threats, no violence of any sort. Lots of shouting, lots of angry rhetoric, and students being, well, young and passionate. Believe me, I’ve heard worse from the adults in the area. It was an act of civil disobedience, albeit a poorly conceived one. How is the former ambassador any different from, say, another political speaker faced with dissenters? Is it because it was Muslim students protesting? Because the issue was Israel? How is that categorically different from, say, a group of tea party activists showing up at an Obama speech and yelling? Or (as I’ve witnessed at UCI on more than one occasion), Jewish students yelling at a speaker brought in by the MSU?
There’s plenty of real crime in Orange County. The DA needs to worry about that, not about students disrupting a speech.
11126724 - February 10, 2011 at 11:56 am
What idiot invited the Israeli ambassador to propagandize the campus community anyway? Why encourage a representative of a rogue nation that continues to violate many international laws and resolutions of the UN, spies on the United States government, and defies all efforts to find peace in the Middle East by building more illegal settlements on land that is not theirs? The ambassador should be shunned, not invited to speak at a university.
rsmulcahy - February 10, 2011 at 1:48 pm
Everyone knows the Jews built the pyramids, the Sphinx and possibly the the Mall of America but that hasn’t been fully established yet.