Summary
Eleven UC students charged with criminal misdemeanors after protesting a February 2010 speech by Michael Oren, then Israeli ambassador to the United States, at UC Irvine, as recounted in the Palestine Legal/CCR Report (The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US, PDF p.39-40).
Details
- In February 2011 the Orange County district attorney charged the eleven students with conspiring to disrupt a public meeting and disrupting a public meeting, after they read brief statements and walked out of the speech (PDF p.39).
- Before filing charges the DA’s office met with Simon Wiesenthal Center rabbi Aron Hier and UC Riverside’s Hillel director; during the pretrial period the judge reprimanded the DA for “tainting the jury pool by labeling the student defendants as anti-Semitic, declaring them guilty and other ‘ethically irresponsible’ statements”, and for illegally using felony subpoenas to obtain confidential attorney-client communications in a misdemeanor case, and ordered the main investigator and deputies removed (PDF p.39-40).
- On September 23, 2011 ten of the students were found guilty and sentenced to three years’ probation, fifty-six hours of community service and fines; the California Court of Appeals denied their appeal, including a challenge to the law’s unconstitutional vagueness as applied to protected speech, in March 2014 (PDF p.40).
Related pages
The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US, Michael Oren, Freedom of Expression, Simon Wiesenthal Center