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UCI Faculty Letter to DA: Drop the Charges Against the Irvine 11

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As faculty of the University of California, Irvine we are deeply distressed by the decision of the Orange County District Attorney to file criminal charges against the students who disrupted Ambassador Michael Oren’s speech on campus.  The students were wrong to prevent a speaker invited to the campus from speaking and being heard.  And the Muslim Student Union acted inappropriately in coordinating this and in misrepresenting its involvement to University officials.   But the individual students and the Muslim Student Union were disciplined for this conduct by the University, including the MSU being suspended from being a student organization for a quarter.  This is sufficient punishment. There is no need for criminal prosecution and criminal sanctions.  The use of the criminal justice system will be detrimental to our campus as it inherently will be divisive and risk undoing the healing process which has occurred over the last year.  It also sets a dangerous precedent for the use of the criminal law against non-violent protests on campus.

We urge the District Attorney to dismiss the criminal charges.  At the very least, we urge the District Attorney and the students to agree to resolve the charges with the students performing community service and a short probation, after which the matter will be expunged from the students’ records.

Frank D. Bean, Chancellor’s Professor of Sociology

Kitty Calavita, Chancellor’s Professor of Criminology, Law and Society

Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean, School of Law

Joseph F. C. DiMento, Professor of Law and Policy, Planning & Design

Valerie Jenness, Dean, School of Social Ecology

Catherine Liu, Director, Humanities Center

Duncan Luce, Distinguished Research Professor of Cognitive Science

Penelope Maddy, Distinguished Professor of Logic & Philosophy of Science

George Marcus, Chancellor’s Professor of Anthropology

James M. McGaugh, Research Professor, Neurobiology and Behavior

Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Chancellor’s Professor of Law

Jack Miles, Distinguished Professor of English and Religious Studies

Mark Petracca, Chair, Dept. of Political Science

Kenneth Pomeranz, Chancellor’s Professor of History

Vicki Ruiz, Dean, School of Humanities

Sharon Salinger, Dean of Undergraduate Education

Barry Siegel, Director, Literary Journalism Program

Brook Thomas, Chancellor’s Professor of English

Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chair, Dept. of History

Henry Weinstein, Senior Lecturer in Law and Literary Journalism

Jon Wiener, Professor of History

Dan L. Burk, Chancellor’s Professor of Law

Catherine Fisk, Chancellor’s Professor of Law

David A. Snow, Chancellor’s Professor of Sociology

F. Allan Hubbell, Executive Vice Dean, School of Medicine

Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Distinguished Professor of English  & Comparative Literature

Etienne Balibar, Distinguished Professor of Humanities

Greg Duncan, Distinguished Professor of Education

Grace C. Tonner, Associate Dean of Lawyering Skills

Ulrike Strasser, Associate Professor, History and Director, European Studies

Irene Tucker, Associate Professor of English

James Given, Professor of History

Dickson D. Bruce, Jr., Professor of History, Emeritus

Hugh Roberts, Assoc. Prof. Dept. of English

Robert Newsom, Professor Emeritus, Department of English

Mark Poster, Emeritus Professor, Film and Media Studies and History

Sharon Block, Associate Professor of History

Ann Van Sant, English

Jennifer Terry, Chair and Associate Professor of Women’s Studies

Laura J. Mitchell, Associate Professor of History

Emily Rosenberg, Professor of History

R. Radhakrishnan, Chancellor’s Professor of English and Comparative Literature

Eyal Amiran, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature and Film and Media Studies

Jerome Christensen, Professor of English

Susan Jarratt, Comparative Literature

Rebeca Helfer, English Department

Annette Schlichter, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature

Timothy Tackett, Professor of History

Touraj Daryaee, History Department

Carolyn P. Boyd, Professor Emerita, Department of History

Amy Wilentz, Professor of English and Literary Journalism

Victoria Silver, Associate Professor of English

Alice Fahs, Associate Professor of History

Anne Walthall, Professor of History

Laura Kang, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies

Alexander Gelley, Professor, Dept. of Comparative Literature

Elizabeth Allen, Associate Professor of English

Rubén G. Rumbaut, Professor of Sociology

David A.  Smith, Professor of Sociology and Planning, Policy and Design

Sarah Farmer, Associate Professor of History

Raul Fernandez, Social Sciences/Chicano Latino Studies

Keith Nelson, Professor Emeritus of History, Director, Program in Religious Studies

Estela Zarate, Assistant Professor, Department of Education

Leo Chavez, Anthropology

Deborah R. Vargas, Assistant Professor, Chicano/Latino Studies

Thurston Domina, Assistant Professor of Education and Sociology

, DeSipio, Chair, Department of Chicano/Latino Studies

Jutta Heckhausen, Professor, Psychology and Social Behavior

Heidi Tinsman, Associate Professor of History

Ellen Burt, Professor of French and Comparative Literature

Belinda Robnett-Olsen, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology

Robert Folkenflik, Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professor of English

Ron Carlson, Professor of English

Edwin Amenta, Professor of Sociology and History

Francesca Polletta, Professor of Sociology

Susan K. Brown, Associate Professor of Sociology

Adriana Johnson, Comparative Literature

Rachel Sarah O’Toole, Assistant Professor, History Department

Nancy McLaughlin, Assistant Professor, History Department

Steven C. Topik, Professor of History

Gilbert G. Gonzalez, Professor, Chicano-Latino Studies

Judy Stepan-Norris, Sociology

Julia Reinhard Lupton, Professor of English and Comparative Literature

Spencer Olin, Professor Emeritus of History

Glen Mimura, Associate Dean of Graduate Study, School of Humanities

Ana Elizabeth Rosas, Assistant Professor, Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies and History

Robert Moeller, Department of History

Elizabeth M. Guthrie, French, retired

Cecile Whiting, Chair, Department of Art History

Cynthia Feliciano, Associate Professor, Sociology and Chicano/Latino Studies

David S. Meyer, Professor, Sociology

Charlie Chubb, Professor, Cognitive Sciences

Alejandro Morales, Professor, Department of Chicano/Latino Studies

Ian Munro, Associate Professor of Drama

Luke Hegel-Cantarella, Head of Scenic Design – Claire Trevor School of the Arts

David Igler, Associate Professor of History

Stephen Barker, Associate Dean, Claire Trevor School of the Arts

Cliff Faulkner, Senior Lecturer, Drama Department

Vincent Olivieri, Designer/Composer/Assistant Professor, Drama Department

Carol Burke, Professor, English