Ten protesters will face misdemeanor charges in connection with a May 15 pro-Palestinian protest at UCI that police declared an unlawful assembly, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said Wednesday.
They were charged with failure to disperse at the scene of a riot, while two also were charged with resisting arrest, prosecutors said.
The defendants include an associate professor, a lecturer and four UCI students, according to information released by prosecutors. The ties of the remaining four defendants to UCI, if any, were not immediately clear.
All 10 were ordered to appear in court on Oct. 16, DA officials said.
Prosecutors are still reviewing potential evidence related to another several dozen who were arrested during the May 15 protest.
In a statement Wednesday, UCI officials wrote that the university “has a long history of supporting free speech and peaceful protest,” but added that “all members of the UC Irvine community remain subject to all applicable laws, policies, and relevant codes of conduct while engaging in protest activities …
“As part of ongoing efforts across the University of California system, UC Irvine is clearly communicating with all members of the university community regarding campus policies, their enforcement, and the balance between free expression and campus safety,” the statement read.
Those charged with the single failure to disperse charge will likely be eligible for a court diversion program rather than face time behind bars, prosecutors confirmed.
But it wasn’t immediately clear what impact, if any, the charges will have on the status of those who are current UC Irvine faculty or students. UC Irvine officials did not respond to direct questions about whether criminal charges or a conviction could jeopardize any of their academic careers.
Two UCI faculty members were among those named by prosecutors — Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, an associate professor of Global & International Studies, and Jonathan Brook Haley, a lecturer with the School of Humanities.
Willoughby-Herard and Haley could not be immediately reached for comment.
It wasn’t clear from court records if Haley, Willoughby-Herard or any of the other people charged in connection with the protests have hired or been appointed attorneys.
The demonstration at UCI came during a wave of protests at college campuses across the country related to the Israel-Hamas war.
At UC Irvine, tensions with campus leaders came to a head after a small group of protesters barricaded themselves inside the Physical Sciences Lecture Hall.
Officers in riot gear from more than a dozen local law enforcement agencies were called in to clear the group from the lecture hall, along with a much larger group of around 500 protesters at a makeshift pro-Palestine campus encampment nearby.
Police took 47 people, including 27 students, into custody while clearing the protests. The students were later placed on interim suspension.
“The right to peaceful assembly is a constitutional right and we encourage (protesters) to exercise their right to peaceful assembly on any issue,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement.
“However, criminal activity which transcends peaceful assembly will not be tolerated,” he said. “As such, the Orange County District Attorney’s Special Prosecutions Unit has spent months reviewing evidence to determine what, if any, crimes were committed by (protesters) at UCI following the lawful dispersal order issued by UCI police.”
Tents erected by protesters stood for more than two weeks, beginning in late April, before the confrontation involving police and protesters. Students within the makeshift camps — at the beginning numbering several dozen — crafted homemade posters and zines, prayed together and changed at lengthy in support of the Palestinian people.
The protesters wanted the university to divest from companies and institutions with ties to Israel and weapons manufacturers, to support an end to the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and to reinvest funds toward students and workers, among other demands.
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On the afternoon of May 15, the crowd swelled to 500 people, according to university officials, expanding the footprint of an encampment in front of the Physical Sciences Lecture Hall comprised of pop-up tents, wood pallets and other fortifications. As a small group barricaded themselves inside the actual hall, UCI issued an emergency campus wide alert referring to a “violent protest” in the area.
In the aftermath, UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman described himself as “brokenhearted” and argued that the university had exhausted “all possible alternatives before resorting to police intervention.”
The resulting crackdown drew criticism in the campus community. Some faculty members argued that by calling in additional law enforcement campus leaders had violated the protesters’ rights to free speech and assembly, and had jeopardized their workplace safety.
The delay between the arrests and decisions related to criminal charges has left the impacted students in an academic no-man’s land, some have said, particularly on the eve of the campus’ fall term. A student arrested on May 15 — whose name was not among the list of defendant’s released by prosecutors on Wednesday — recently told a Southern California News Group reporter that “the process is the punishment.”
Last month, five undergraduate students who had been suspended indefinitely by UC Irvine for participation in various pro-Palestinian protest activities on the campus sued the UC Regents and Gillman, alleging that their suspensions “constitute a clear violation of the university’s own rules and the minimum standards of due process applicable to public institutions.”
A national analysis by the New York Times in late July found that more than 3,100 people had been arrested in connection to pro-Palestinian protests and encampments on college campuses. But the paper also found that many of the charges had been dropped, even though students faced additional potential consequences such as being barred from campus or not receiving their diplomas.