Amid the brutal police crackdowns at more than 100 campus protests against the war in Gaza the spring, one university in California stood out for its especially harsh treatment of student protesters. The school effectively eliminated any due process for the students by suspending them without making specific allegations of misconduct or allowing the students to respond to vague charges.
Last month, student protesters at University of California, Irvine sued the school regents and chancellor for suspending them without any notice or a chance to present evidence in their defense. On Tuesday, plaintiffs in the suit filed a motion to ask the Superior Court of California to step in.
The five students are asking the court to force the school to halt the suspensions and allow students to resume their studies, register for fall classes, go back to campus jobs, and regain access to campus housing.
More than 3,000 people were arrested during brutal police crackdowns on campus protests this year, according to a protest tracker developed by The Appeal. UCI is still an outlier — it’s one of the only schools in the country that issued interim suspensions banning students from campus before they had a chance to respond. The university’s approach was, a representative for the students said, unprecedented.
“That’s outrageous — that’s not how due process is supposed to work.”
“That’s outrageous — that’s not how due process is supposed to work,” said Thomas Harvey, an attorney representing the students in the suit. “They seem to be punishing our clients with a method that not only is unprecedented in UCI’s use in terms of responses to protests or student conduct issues, but also it stands out as unusual among the entire UC system.”
Tom Vasich, a spokesperson for UCI, said, “The university does not comment on lawsuits.”
At least two of the students were prohibited from graduating in the spring because of the suspensions. They will eventually have to take and pay for another semester of classes but are still barred from registering for courses for the upcoming fall semester.
The UCI chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine also received an interim suspension. SJP chapters at schools around the country have been targeted under bans and suspensions in crackdowns on campus protests. SJP at UCI was also told as a result of the suspension that the club could not post on their own Instagram page.
Students suspended at UCI this spring received notices from the school that listed no specific allegations against them but said they were present at protests where the school claimed that violations of campus policy had allegedly occurred.
The students said they were not given an opportunity to have a hearing on the claims against them or to present evidence in their defense before the suspension went into effect. Students who received the suspension notices were told that they could not attend classes in person or online, access student housing, or be on campus at all, effective immediately.
Interim suspensions have never been used in this way at UCI or at any other schools in the UC system, said Harvey, the plaintiffs’ attorney.
“You think about the draconian ways they cracked down on dissent at UCLA, and UCLA still hasn’t used interim suspensions to punish their students,” he said. “They’re not saying, ‘You can’t come on campus indefinitely until we resolve your student conduct hearing,’” he added. “They’re not issuing the punishment in advance of the hearing, which is what they’re doing at UCI.”
Students are hurting emotionally, financially, and otherwise. But the suspensions haven’t discouraged them from speaking out against the war on Gaza.
“This is nothing but a scare tactic to intimidate and shake our resolve,” one of the student plaintiffs, who requested anonymity to avoid reprisals, told The Intercept. “The university hopes to shift our attention away from our demands for divestment. But these suspensions are not going to deter us from fighting for the liberation of Palestine. If anything, it’s strengthening our resolve.”
No Due Process
When a student at UCI is accused of violating school policy, they go through a student conduct process before any kind of punishment is meted out.
In this case, however, students were punished with interim suspensions before any evidence against them was presented, according to Harvey and another faculty member who supported the students. None of the suspended students have yet been adjudicated to have violated any student conduct rules. That decision is pending and will be made at the resolution of ongoing student conduct processes. While that proceeds, the students are stuck in limbo.
Students who received suspensions notices were notified that they could appeal their suspensions by setting up a meeting with a school administrator. Students met with the chancellor to appeal their suspensions but were not presented with specific evidence against them, according to Harvey and two members of the UCI faculty who spoke to The Intercept. After the meetings, the vice chancellor issued decision letters upholding their suspensions.
Students were told they’d get an update on the process at the beginning of the summer, but said they have not gotten any information on where the process stands.
The UCI faculty senate and graduate student body have sent signals to the administration that their treatment of student protesters is unacceptable. In June, the UCI Associated Graduate Students passed a vote of no confidence against the chancellor.
School faculty also proposed a resolution to censure the chancellor for calling 22 different law enforcement agencies to confront students during protests, which violates UC policies on what circumstances justify calling in outside police.
The resolution narrowly failed, but another motion to launch an independent investigation of the handling of the police response did pass. And a motion criticizing how the administration has handled interim student suspensions, demanding an investigation into the suspension process, and calling for the suspensions to be lifted also passed.
“The suspensions happened immediately and it was without any due process. In my view, the chancellor clearly violated UCI procedures and UC procedures,” said Cecelia Lynch, a professor of political science at UCI who is part of an ad hoc faculty group, Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, that organized after October 7 to support students facing disciplinary action for participating in peaceful campus protests. “The students however, had no due process and were all charged in the student conduct hearing with the same evidence — were all given the same evidence — which is not according to procedure.”
“I would just draw attention to that irony,” she said, “of the chancellor not taking any responsibility and not having any punitive action against him. But the students have already had severe punitive action, including being made homeless temporarily. And now they’re facing additional charges as well as potentially criminal charges. So it is quite a contrast in terms of accountability.”
“Almost all of the UCs have reacted badly and several of them extremely violently. Our campus was apparently the worst, unfortunately.”
Hundreds of faculty members attended three meetings that each spanned more than two hours. There was widespread disagreement about the encampments and the school’s response. However, faculty were aligned in their concerns about the ramifications for speech on campus and transparency of the administration’s decisions, said Annie McClanahan, associate professor of English, chair of the Irvine Faculty Association, and part of FSJP.
“On the interim suspensions and the issue of the student conduct process, there was really near unanimous agreement,” she said, citing agreement with an ACLU of Southern California amicus brief in support of the students on Wednesday.
While none of the UC schools handled the protests well, said Lynch, UCI’s response has been particularly noteworthy. “Almost all of the UCs have reacted badly and several of them extremely violently,” she said. “Our campus was apparently the worst, unfortunately.”
History of Crackdowns
UCI has a history of cracking down on protests, including the Irvine 11, a group of students who interrupted a campus speech by the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. in 2010. The students were arrested and later charged and convicted of conspiracy to disrupt a public meeting.
The school has also tried to break up other protests, including those in solidarity with the United Auto Workers strike. UCI’s treatment of protests in support of Palestine, however, stands out for its brutality, the suspended student said.
“We’ve seen student encampments happen throughout history as well, and it’s always been in the form of anti-war and it’s always been pro-people. And it’s always been challenging the university as an imperialist institution. Particularly with the UC system, we’re seeing a mass militarization across all the UCs,” they said. “It’s in particular because this is so pro-Palestine. And in terms of UCI history, this is not the first time they’ve done something like this to repress student voices speaking up for Palestine.”
Student protesters expected this kind of crackdown and haven’t been distracted from their goal, they said.
“All the students did not go into the encampments thinking they would be safe from the university,” the student told The Intercept. “They understood that whatever we face, it’s nothing compared to what Palestinians are facing on the ground.”