50 hours of community service for Muslim Student Union members

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UC Irvine recommends suspension of campus' Muslim student group (LA Times)

     UC Irvine officials have recommended the suspension of the university's Muslim student group whose members disrupted a speech by the Israeli ambassador earlier this year, heightening a debate about free speech that has roiled the campus.
     The decision appears to be the first in recent memory at UC recommending the ban of a student group for something other than hazing or alcohol abuse.
     In making the suspension recommendation, Lisa Cornish, UC Irvine's director of student housing, found that the Muslim Student Union had "planned, orchestrated and coordinated in advance" an effort to disrupt a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren on Feb. 8 about U.S.-Israeli relations. The recommendation was made in late May but not made public at that time.
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     In a report detailing the findings of its investigation, Cornish cited e-mails between members of the student union and detailed minutes from a Feb. 3 meeting.
     According to the report, the group's goal was to "send the speaker a message" and to develop a "game plan" to disrupt Oren's speech.
     The plan included identifying students willing to participate, drafting scripted statements and urging supporters to attend and cheer each disruption. The plan also instructed students to deny that the Muslim Student Union organized the protest, according to the report.
     The group violated university policies prohibiting "fabricating information (or) furnishing false information," "obstruction or disruption of teaching, research, administration … or other University activities," "disorderly or lewd conduct" and "participation in a disturbance of the peace or unlawful assembly," according to the report.
     Along with a one-year suspension, which would begin in September, the report requires members of the student union to complete 50 hours of community service. If the group is suspended, its current officers could not act as "authorized signers" for any other student organization.
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     Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Irvine's law school, said the ban was appropriate punishment and stressed it stemmed not from the students' speech but for misrepresenting their role in the incident. "Given the seriousness of the offense, I think it's completely appropriate to suspend them for a year," he said.
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     UC Irvine has long been a flashpoint of tensions between Muslim and Jewish groups. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights investigated whether the university discriminated against Jews. That probe found that although Muslim students had engaged in offensive behavior, their actions stemmed from opposition to the policies of Israel rather than to Jewish students themselves.
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…Victor Sanchez, president of the systemwide UC Student Assn., said he was outraged. "It's almost impossible not to interpret this as a means of the university to silence dissent," he said….

Irvine Responds to Heckling Incident (Inside Higher Ed)

     John K. Wilson, whose blog College Freedom takes a strong free speech position, said he was opposed to collective punishment of student groups. "It's possible that there were innocent members of this group who will now suffer despite not being involved," he said. He said he could, however, see appropriate punishment being legitimate for the individuals who interrupted the talk. "It was a serious, multiple disruption of a speaker that certainly deserves condemnation and is subject to punishment," he said.

UC-Irvine Suspends Muslim Student Group for Disrupting Speech (Chronicle of Higher Education)