WATCH: The Irvine 11: Free Speech on Trial (Video)

On Friday, March 10, eleven Muslim students will be arraigned on criminal charges for “conspiracy” to disrupt Israeli ambassador Michael Oren’s 2010 speech at UC Irvine. If convicted, the students face up to six months in prison. Since heckling is common on college campuses, are these students being unfairly singled out? A Mother Jones video:

UPDATE 1, Friday, March 11, 3:06 p.m. PST: Reem Salahi, an attorney on the Irvine 11’s legal defense team, tells me that the team has filed a motion to move the case to the California Attorney General’s jurisdiction. “We do not feel confident in the ability of the Orange County District Attorney (OCDA) to prosecute this case,” Salahi said. “They have engaged in prosecutorial misconduct.”

She claims that OCDA illegally used subpoenas reserved for felony cases to obtain confidential client-attorney emails as the basis for the Irvine 11’s misdemeanor case. In addition, Salahi alleges there is discrimination involved; she cites an internal OCDA email with the subject heading, “UCI Muslim case,” even though the OCDA’s charges do not involve religion. “It raises the question of whether this is truly a case about the First Amendment,” Salahi said.

Orange County Assistant District Attorney Wagner told the Orange County Register that his office had used the “UCI Muslim case” subject line as “shorthand” for Muslim Student Union. He also insisted that the defense has not stated “any grounds at all that would lead to the suppression of the evidence [obtained].”

The judge will consider the defense’s motion, and has rescheduled the arraignment for Friday, April 15. More updates will be added to this post as they occur.

UPDATE 2, Friday, April 15, 5:05 p.m. PST: At today’s arraignment, all 11 defendants entered “not guilty” pleas. Reem Salahi, one of the “Irvine 11” attorneys, told me the case raises questions about “whether dissent will become criminalized.” The judge said the defense’s arguments to remove the Orange County DA from the case will be heard June 17. The judge also set a pre-trial date of June 30 and a trial date of August 15.

There is a possibility that media statements made by the Orange County DA’s office, including Susan Schroeder’s video interview with Mother Jones, will be entered as evidence of the DA’s “selective and discriminatory prosecution,” Salahi says. “The DA viewed this case differently than other prosecutions. That’s clear from looking at the internal documents, and hearing some of the statements they made—including the video on your website where Susan Schroeder….insinuates that the students were anti-Semitic.”

Schroeder was not available for comment, but Orange County Assistant District Attorney Dan Wagner said, “To put a finer point on it, what they were saying was certainly anti-Israel.” Asked if anti-Israel and anti-Semitic was the same thing, Wagner replied, “I think they are making a distinction about that. To me, it’s about the same.” He added later, “It’s pathetically slender evidence [they have] to say that we have religious bias against them.”

Earlier this month, Jewish students at Brandeis University disrupted a Q&A session following Israeli parliamentarian Avi Dichter’s speech at the university. Students stood up one by one, accusing Dichter of war crimes, then left the room. Below is a video of the incident. Although the incident at UC Irvine was very similar in execution, the Brandeis students have not been prosecuted.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate