100 UC Irvine faculty members ask district attorney to drop charges against Muslim students

February 9, 2011 | 11:20 am

A group of 100 faculty members at UC Irvine signed a letter asking the Orange County district attorney to drop criminal charges against 11 Muslim students who disrupted a speech by the Israeli ambassador to the United States.

The group, including five deans, said the Muslim Student Union was wrong to disrupt the speech last year by Ambassador Michael Oren but that the students and the group had already been disciplined by the university.

Orange County prosecutors announced last week they were charging the students with two misdemeanor counts, including conspiracy to disrupt the speech. If convicted, each faces up to six months in jail.

The decision to charge the students, the faculty letter says, “sets a dangerous precedent for the use of the criminal law against nonviolent protests on campus.”

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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/02/uc-irvine-muslim-students-charged.html

Outrageous that they were charged.

Disciplinary action from the university yes, but not criminal sanctions.