6. Campus Disciplinary Systems

Ever since their founding, American colleges have punished students for words and actions deemed offensive, immoral, or seditious. In the past, penalties were enforced by presidents or deans of students, often acting arbitrarily. Since the 1960s, disciplinary boards began to do the work of student discipline.

Although much of the criticism directed at campus disciplinary codes is focused on whether it duplicates the due process requirements of the criminal courts, a more fundamental problem is the punishment of free speech itself. In particular, many campus have engaged in guilt by association: punishing a student organization for the acts of individual students. By doing so, administrators are penalizing individual members of the group who may have been totally uninvolved in an activity. In addition, the disciplinary process for organizations often fails to have the same procedural safeguards for individuals.

6(a) San Francisco State University: In response to a May 7, 2002 rally on campus where some pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian protesters yelled hateful remarks, the administration in June 2002 issued a warning to the campus Hillel group and banned the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) for a year.

The pro-Palestinian demonstrators reported that they were called "terrorists", "sand niggers", "camel jockeys", “sharmoota” (whore), "Arab losers", and were told, "go fuck your camels", "go back to your caves", and "Racist terrorists off our campus now." GUPS declared, “When barricades were erected to enclose the students, when trashcans were removed off campus, when police forces were brought onto campus and when RACIST slurs were hurled in their direction they began to chant.” Pro-Palestinian demonstrators also reported “a woman hitting the pro-Palestinian students (who were already barricaded off) with the flagpole of an Israeli flag.” One pro-Israeli challenged several pro-Palestinian students to a fight, raising his fists and screaming "Fuck you!" and spitting at them. One man was writing messages on a large pad of paper with a magic marker: "all Muslims are terrorists" and "We will one day turn the Jordan River into a river of flowing Arab blood."

Pro-Israeli demonstrators also reported numerous epithets and threats, including “die Jews”, "go back to Russia", "All you Jews should die," "I'd kill you if I could,” and, "Hitler didn't do a good enough job, he should [have] exterminated you all when he had the chance." A pro-Palestinian activist took an Israeli flag off a podium during the event, stomped on the flag and then kicked it off a stage.

According to Berkeley officials, “GUPS has been put on probation for one year, losing its funding and its Web site for the year and facing stronger sanctions in case of future violations of rally rules or the student code of conduct. A letter of warning to Hillel for inability to control its participants in one area of the rally.”

Administrators banned the website of GUPS because it included a graphic of a rock being thrown at a Jewish star (which is part of the Israeli flag). The website also had a link to another website that was deemed hateful.

(AP, 6/22/02; San Francisco Chronicle, 5/15/02, 5/24/02, 7/17/02, 7/29/02; Jerusalem Post, 6/9/02, 6/28/02; Los Angeles Times, 5/17/02, 6/22/02; Washington Post, 5/19/02; O’Reilly Factor, 5/14/02; www.sfsu.edu/~news/sfsuresp.htm; http://www.sfgups.cjb.net/)

ANALYSIS: Penalizing student organizations for the actions committed at protests is an illegitimate form of group punishment. Although individual members and outsiders may be penalized for actions deemed threatening, the group itself cannot be punished. To eliminate funding for a group and the opportunity to meet on campus is particularly disturbing, and shutting down a website for linking to offensive views is a clear violation of free speech rights. There is no evidence that either student organization planned or caused any threatening or illegitimate activity. No matter how alarming the views expressed on both sides were, the solution is not to punish a student organization by depriving them of their rights and funding.

6(b) University of California at Berkeley: Administrators temporarily banned Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) after its members led an occupation of a building on April 9, 2002, where 79 people were arrested (all criminal charges were dropped, but one student was denied his degree while being investigated for violating the campus code of conduct). While the investigating was ongoing, Berkeley official banned the group for a month from having an informational table on Sproul Plaza, handing out literature, or using any campus facilities for meetings and rallies.

(LA Times, 5/17/02, 5/23/02; Daily Bruin, 6/30/02; Daily Californian, 4/10/02, 6/14/02; Washington Post, 4/10/02)

ANALYSIS: The “occupation” of a campus building by a group in a nonviolent protest is not a crime. Although chanting by individuals was somewhat disruptive to classes, this in no way justifies a group punishment. The most serious disruption to the academic activities of the university came from the administration, when police locked and chained the doors to the building. No student organization should have its right revoked while an investigation is ongoing; only after some clear basis for punishment is ruled upon can such penalties be imposed.

Other incidents at Berkeley have raised concerns. A graduate student teaching a literature course in fall 2002 on "The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance" included in the course description, “Conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek other sections." The instructor apologized and changed the description, saying that he only meant to avoid a political debate on the Palestinian/Israeli battles, and focus on the literature. However, the Berkeley administration promised to “monitor” the course when it is taught, and many people (including David Horowitz) demanded the course be outlawed.

Gov. Gray Davis sent a letter to UC President Richard Atkinson and CSU Chancellor Charles Reed, urging their help in putting a stop to trends of anti-Semitic "violence, harassment, and abuse," and calling for a review of all course descriptions. While Davis is right to condemn incidents of vandalism (during a break, a door at the Berkeley Hillel was smashed, and "Fuck the Jews" painted in the building), a politician urging limits on demonstrations and course content (and a university agreeing to monitor a course) is particularly dangerous.

6(c) The Koala newspaper at University of California at San Diego had charges against it dismissed by the student Judicial Board on June 5, 2002. The Koala was accused of disrupting a November 19, 2001 meeting of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) by taking photographs after being asked not to do so. Administration officials encouraged the filing of charges and proposed an 18-month suspension for the newspaper.

(UPI, 6/20/02)

6(d) American University: Ben Wetmore, a student who runs a website critical of the administration, recorded an April 8, 2002 Tipper Gore speech which banned videotaping, although the audience was never informed of this. During her speech, campus police officers told Wetmore to hand over the tape. When he refused and engaged in a scuffle, he was arrested and campus disciplinary panel sentenced him to a year’s probation, 40 hours of community service, and removal from an elected office as dorm president.

(Washington Post, July 22, 2002)