After protest, UCI pressured by both sides

A Facebook page simply calls them “the Eleven.” A newly created graphic, based on a Register photograph, depicts a student among the protesters raising his right index finger defiantly as he’s escorted out by a campus police officer.

The rhetoric surrounding the protesters who disrupted a speech by an Israel’s ambassador to the United States Feb. 8 has escalated. University officials face a difficult decision on whether to discipline the students, and if so, how severely. UCI prides itself on its diversity of cultures, religions and political views. To see a video of the Feb. 8 protest, click here.

Jewish groups have for years accused the school of being overly tolerant of what they call anti-Semitic hate speech, and they say the Feb. 8 protest is only the latest outrage. Ambassador Michael Oren had been invited to campus to speak about Israeli-U.S. relations, but his lecture before about 500 people at the Student Center was interrupted 10 times by students denouncing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Earlier that day, UCI’s Muslim Student Union had issued a statement condemning the decision to invite a “public figure who represents a state that continues to break international and humanitarian law ... .”

After the 10th interruption, the event deteriorated further as a large group of students walked out of the conference room to jeers – and, the protesters allege, threats – by Oren’s supporters. Eight UCI students and three UC Riverside students were briefly detained in another room before being released, after Oren had finished his speech. A planned 30-minute question-and-answer session with Oren was scrapped.

The 11 were cited for disrupting a public event, and those charges have been referred to prosecutors. UCI says the disciplinary process against the eight students from the school “has begun.” Asked whether the Muslim Student Union could be disciplined, university spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon said: “There have been rumors flying around, but I would find it highly surprising if that was happening.”

MSU spokeswoman Hadeer Soliman wrote in an e-mail response to the Register that the group wasn’t involved in the protest, and that the students were “acting on their individual accord.” She added: “MSU is concerned with the selective enforcement of policies against both Muslim students and pro-Palestinian activists on campus. The most recent protest illustrates the heavy-handed tactics utilized by the university against individuals who exercised their protected freedom of speech.”

The Facebook group called “Drop All Charges Against the Eleven” had 3,135 members as of Saturday afternoon. “It was unjust to arrest students for simply having the courage to stand up and speak out,” reads the text, and supporters are urged to call or e-mail UCI Chancellor Michael Drake. A video begins with a clip of Martin Luther King Jr. talking about freedom of speech and assembly.

It’s clear that both sides have different views on what constitutes freedom of speech. Moran Cohen, president of Anteaters for Israel, which co-sponsored Oren’s speech, said the protesters are “trying to make it seem like they’re the victims.”

“A lot of people on our campus are very angry at what happened, and they want to act on it and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” added Cohen.

Other Jewish groups outside campus have called on UCI to crack down. Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie, president of the Rabbinical Council of Orange Council, asked in a Register opinion piece whether UCI’s administration will “continue to sit on the sidelines, immobilized, fearing to act?”

There have been several incidents in recent years in which Jewish students have complained of harassment. The federal Office for Civil Rights issued a report in December 2007 that examined 13 separate allegations – including the appearance of swastikas and the defacing of a Holocaust memorial – and said none could be substantiated.

Nevertheless, “it’s a pattern at UCI,” says Shalom C. Elcott, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Orange County. “If you look back over the past four or five years at what goes on on the campus at UC Irvine, there is nothing that comes remotely close to the string of events that occur in this specific arena.

“My experience with Dr. Drake is that he is careful to consider all sides of the issue, and I’m confident that following what happened on Monday that he is going to use whatever powers he has to set the right example.”

Zac Tune, a 19-year-old co-president of Middle East Studies Student Initiative, a group that’s viewed as generally more moderate than MSU, wasn’t willing to criticize the protesters directly. He lamented that a potentially illuminating dialogue was closed off. For example, few people can quite remember what was the subject of Oren’s speech.

“It’s not my place to condemn those other students and their actions,” he said. “The only thing I can talk about is the outcome. The outcome, unfortunately, was a failure.”

However, “Those students are very valuable parts of this campus,” he said, “and I hope the university will let them continue their education, because that’s how we grow. Restricting that or expelling them is not going to be beneficial for those students or the campus or the world as a whole.”

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