Posted on 10/31/2003 1:15:56 PM PST by Stultis
After hearing proposed punishments from campus Judicial Officer Neal Rajmaira and a spirited defense from the students, a panel of professors, staff and students has one week to draw up a letter spelling out its own recommendations to Dean of Students Karen Kenney. Once the recommendations are submitted, the students will be able to make an appeal before Kenney decides what, if any, punishments the students will receive.
During an earlier hearing on Oct. 14, all three students were found responsible for one count each of disturbing the peace and non-compliance with the directives of a university officer, violations of the student code of conduct.
Shingavi and Odes could receive 20 hours of community service and a letter of warning in their file that would be reported should the students apply for a government job or waive their rights to the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Smith, who was also found to have committed a third and separate violation of resisting a university officer, faces a one-semester suspension that would start next spring.
Rajmaira said the suggested penalties fall within a range where a nonreportable letter of warning—one that isn’t reported to law enforcement or governmental agencies—is the mildest penalty and full expulsion the most severe.
From the onset, the students have called the disciplinary proceedings unfair and unwarranted. They denounced the recommended punishments Tuesday, charging that the university is trying to railroad them for a peaceful event.
The students have drawn support from across the country, and activists signed a full page ad that ran in the Daily Californian’s Monday edition. One signatory, Green party gubernatorial candidate Peter Camejo, spoke at a press conference before Monday’s hearing, accompanied by Rachel Ode’s mother, Jackie McGlamery.
“The U.S. is in violation of international law,” Camejo said, “and I’m here to say that the university should respect international law. These students are trying to defend the Constitution and international law and should be given medals, not expelled.”
During Tuesday’s hearing, the three students vigorously challenged the proposed punishments, and complained that the university had violated their right to due process by not giving them sufficient time to mount an adequate defense for the earlier hearing. They were also challenged the university’s decision to press charges stemming from a peaceful event that they said the university knew about well in advance.
One witness the students called Tuesday was Marcia Riley, Director of Student Group Administration for the Office of Student Life. She testified that she had talked to protest organizers “at least half a dozen times,” before the event, adding that she had seen several sit-ins in the past and that “this one was not more disruptful than others.”
Shingavi, a veteran campus organizer, said he thought more preparation and communication had gone into the planning for the protest than for any other in the past 20 years.
“I’ve been arrested five times for political protest, and the precedent for sit-ins in the past has been a letter of warning/no report,” said Shingavi, who said that the university was trying unfairly to make examples of the students.
Shingavi derided the university for capitalizing on its image as the home of the free speech movement while prosecuting students for peaceful protests.
“It baffles me that the university is willing to go after three protesters while no other university across the country is doing the same thing,” he said. “It will speak volumes to how this university has changed in 30 years if the convictions are handed down.”
More than 4,000 students appeared for the March event on the steps of Sproul Hall, called to protest the beginning on the American war on Iraq. The arrests began after 400 of the students entered the hall a sit-in.
Tuesday’s hearing grew heated when Rajmaira accused Smith of participating in a “racially motivated” incident two years ago where—Rajmaira claimed—Smith had been arrested by Berkeley officers after confronting a group of Asian men. Rajmaira called the event “a very serious case,” and cited it as the principal reason for increasing Smith’s punishment beyond the letter of warning and community service he recommended for the others.
An angry Smith called Rajmaira’s characterization of the incident “untrue, offensive and disgusting.”
“It is true that I was involved in a fight off campus,” said Smith, who said he had confronted not the Asian men but the officer—who he thought was harassing the Asians. He said Rajmaira’s version of the incident proved “that [the university] is going to go after us in any way to railroad us. It shows that [Mr. Rajmaira] is not interested in the truth.”
The tribunal then retreated into a closed-door session in which tribunal members examined the university report and consulted both sides. When the panel re-emerged, they voted to reject Rajimira’s account of the incident.
Both sides continued to exchange words over the incident, with the students accusing Rajmaira of introducing the allegation in an effort to railroad the defendants and lambasting him for trying to label Smith a racist.
Rajmaira responded in an equally hostile tone, “I’m not backing off one bit from what I think these records indicate.”
At that point, panel chair and Physics Professor Burt Jacobson raised his hand to silence both sides.
The three students also questioned the process used to single them out for punishment. When they cross-examined Rajmaira’s assistant, he said the three had been singled out for punitive action after he checked the records of all 119 students originally arrested at the protest and found that only Odes, Smith, Shingavi and one other student (who later accepted a plea bargain) had prior offenses.
That question proved compelling enough to convince Jacobson to propose conducting his own independent records check to make certain that the three hadn’t been unfairly targeted—but he quickly learned that his inquiry might be derailed by issues of student privacy.
The hearing closed after both sides finished their arguments and rebuttals and Jacobson announced that the panel would issue its recommendations in one week.
Most of the small crowd of spectators quickly departed, leaving the room to the three students and a few supporters, who engaged in a spirited discussion of what had just happened.
“I knew beforehand the university was going after us and that they wanted a conviction instead of the truth,” Smith said. “But I’m a little flabbergasted at the tactics [Rajmaira] used.”
Shingavi agreed. “The arrogance of Rajmaira betrays the university’s idea that this is not a vendetta,” he said.
Odes was more positive, saying that she thought the hearing allowed the students to make their case—but he agreed that they were under attack. “It proves how much they want to convict us,” she said.
Rajmaira told a reporter he “was happy both sides were able to appear and I am awaiting the panels’ findings and recommendations.”
| Activists Convicted of Campus Code Violations (UC Berkeley: repeat-offender saddamite socialists) ^ |
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| Posted by Stultis On 10/24/2003 10:21 PM CDT with 10 comments The Daily Californian (UC Berkeley) ^ | 15 October 2003 | SHAUNA SWEENEY Activists Convicted of Campus Code ViolationsStudent Protesters Declare Hearing ‘Witch Hunt,’ Storm Out By SHAUNA SWEENEYContributing WriterWednesday, October 15, 2003 After abruptly walking out of their own hearing yesterday, three prominent student activists arrested in an anti-war protest last spring were found guilty of violating university code by a campus committee. Michael Smith, Rachel Odes and Snehal Shingavi, all active members of the Berkeley Stop the War Coalition, were found guilty of disturbing the peace and failing to comply with an official. Smith was also convicted for restricting and resisting a university official. However, the three students were cleared of two |
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One of these pukes, Snehal Shingavi, is the English Department instructor who taught a class on "The Politics and Poetry of Palestinian Resistance" for which the official course description declared, "This class takes as its starting point the right of Palestinians to fight for their own self-determination. Conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek other sections." It also refered to the "brutal Israeli military occupation of Palestine" as having "been ongoing since 1948".
These perps were also involved with "Students for Justice in Palestine," which had forcibly occupied an adminstration building a year prior to the similar incident for which they are currently being disciplined.
[...]
Snehal is a commie- he's the campus leader of the International Socialist Organization.
[...]
For Snehal Shingavi, courting bad press and controversy is nothing new. At an event billed as a ‘memorial vigil’ just days after September 11, Snehal Shingavi extolled the Arab terrorists for making the ‘first blow against American capitalism,’ and wished that President Bush had been in the towers. He then booed and laughed at students who called for a military response or expressed grief over friends whom they had lost in the attacks. Last October, a student claims that he saw Snehal and another student steal an entire press run of 23,000 issues of The Daily California. This student claims to be an eyewitness to this crime and took photographs of theft. The photographs, however, were ‘conveniently lost’ when he handed in the film as evidence.
With regards,
Greg
Ok, what does international law have to do with the constitution? And how is the US violating it with respect to these three twits? And thirdly, how is respect for international law going to properly address the obviously overlooked fact that these students broke the law?
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