Anti-Israel Students and Prof Sue UC-Santa Cruz Over Being Banned From Campus
“They flunked classes and had difficulty obtaining enough food during this period of time”
People on the left in higher education are stunned when they face real consequences because they’re not used to it.
KQED News reports:
UC Santa Cruz Students, Professor Sue Over Campus Bans After Pro-Palestinian Protest
As pro-Palestinian activism resumes on college campuses this fall, a group of UC Santa Cruz activists is suing the school for issuing what they believe were illegal campus bans to protesters last spring. Their goal is to prevent the school from doing so again.
On Monday, lawyers filed a lawsuit on behalf of two students and a professor who were among more than 110 people arrested during a protest in May. They say that campus officials issued up to two-week bans to many of the people arrested, leaving some without housing, campus resources, or places to take their final exams for the spring quarter.
“They flunked classes and had difficulty obtaining enough food during this period of time,” Rachel Lederman, a member of the legal team, said. “One of my clients couldn’t access an important health care appointment at the campus health center because she was banned from campus. The effects were pretty devastating, even though the ban was short term.”
Late on May 30, police in riot gear were deployed to a pro-Palestinian encampment set up in a little-used parking lot near the base of UC Santa Cruz’s mountainous campus.
Lederman said that when students and professors heard police were arriving, many joined to stand in solidarity with the protesters. Throughout the night, she said police surrounded and squeezed in on them and eventually arrested and detained 112 people.
When they were released, many were told they were temporarily banned from campus and could face a misdemeanor charge if they did not comply.
The suit filed by Lederman and the protesters’ legal team claims that UCSC officials illegally imposed a California penal code that allows the school to “withdraw permission for a person to be on campus.” The statute limits these temporary bans to 14 days.
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Comments
My house in Santa Cruz is less than a half mile from the “protest”, which was actually an encampment that blocked access to the university (closing it for two weeks) and caused city streets to be closed. To characterize the protest as non-disruptive and not threatening to persons or property is ridiculous. I’ve got photos that say otherwise.