Muslim Student Union

UC Irvine police are investigating an incident in which an FBI agent reportedly had an altercation on campus with members of the Muslim Student Union. On Monday night, according to the Muslim group's spokeswoman Marya Bangee, a car stopped near Ring Road while the students were taking apart their display for the "Israel: Apartheid Resurrected" seminar event. Bangee said the driver appeared to try to run down student Yasser Ahmed, and that campus police later said that the man was a federal agent.

A UC Irvine student conduct committee has recommended suspending the Muslim Student Union, following repeated disruptions by several of its members during a February speech by the Israeli ambassador, a campus spokeswoman said. The recommendation has not taken effect because the student group has appealed the decision, said UCI spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon. If the recommendation is upheld, the Muslim Student Union, or MSU, will be suspended for the 2010-11 school year. Reem Salahi, the attorney representing MSU, said the recommendation is unprecedented and would alienate hundreds of students.

The Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine has announced the schedule for "Israel: Apartheid Resurrected," a week of seminars dealing with Israel, its treatment of Palestine and the Zionist movement. The seminar is scheduled to begin Monday at noon under the flagpoles by the administration building, with Imam Mohammad al-Asi, the leader of the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C., giving a speech titled "Why Palestine?" Al-Asi also plans to speak on Hamas, the controversial Palestinian political group, at 6 p.m. in the campus' Crystal Cove Auditorium.

UCI CAMPUS — The Muslim Student Union, which has garnered attention and criticism for its recent political events on campus, drew the attention of a state assemblyman on Thursday who intended to film the union's event and post it online. Newport Beach Assemblyman Chuck DeVore attended a speech in the Humanities Hall by Sheikh Sadullah Khan, a political activist from South Africa who fought against the country's apartheid regime. The assemblyman brought a hand-held video camera with him and said before the event that he wanted to see how members of the Muslim Student Union would react to him taping Khan's speech.

UCI students will debate Middle East issues as the Muslim Student Union and pro-Israel groups host a series of speakers in an annual event that has generated considerable controversy in the past. “Never Again? The Palestinian Holocaust” is the name of the activities presented by the Muslim Student Union through May 14, which kicked off Wednesday with “What’s the Fuss? Is Criticism of Israel Anti-Semitic?” featuring speaker Norman Finkelstein. Jewish community leaders are already protesting.

A federal civil rights official who visited UC Irvine on Thursday said anti-Semitism exists on the campus, although he added that it was difficult to gauge how large of a problem it is. Kenneth Marcus, the staff director of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, spoke to an audience of about two dozen in the campus Berkeley Place building. Marcus' group, an independent agency established by Congress in 1957, issued a report last July on campus anti-Semitism nationwide, and UCI was among the campuses cited in the study.

UC Irvine student leaders from Islamic, Jewish, Christian, Druze and unaffiliated religious backgrounds took a joint trip to Israel and Palestine this September, after 18 months of planning and $60,000 of fundraising. At 7 p.m. Thursday, the students will present “Beyond Stereotypes: Faces and Voices of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” a program sharing their insights gathered during the two-week trip. The 14 students included members of the Muslim Student Union, Society of Arab Students, Anteaters for Israel, UCI chapter of Hillel, Middle East Studies Initiative and Model U.N. The free program will be at the UCI Student Center, Crystal Cove Auditorium.

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore said history is what brought him to UCI Wednesday night to see Middle East historian Daniel Pipes speak. Specifically, the history of Muslim Student Union members disrupting lectures that they don’t agree with, he said. DeVore said what he saw Wednesday was a step in the right direction. More than 50 students, mostly Muslim, sat in the audience for Pipes’ lecture in silent protest. Their mouths were covered with tape reading words like “hatred” “racism” and “Islamaphobia.

I cannot understand why the L.A. Times and the Daily Pilot continue on their editorial pages to defend the Irvine 11 (Editorial: Irvine 11, D.A. both made mistakes, Daily Pilot, Oct. 2; "Editorial: Punishing the 'Irvine 11' again, Los Angeles Times, Sept. 24"). I have observed and been involved with what has been going on at UC Irvine for at least 10 years or more. For too many years, these Muslim students have been causing disruptions, spewing their hate and making it difficult for serious students to get to classes and do what they have come there for — an education.

Historically, county district attorneys have demurred from pursuing legal action against University of California students in cases of alleged minor crimes and misdemeanors when these incidents occur on university property. Instead, they have appropriately elected to honor the well-enumerated due process procedures in place at each of the UC campuses. In the case of the so-called "Irvine 11," UC Irvine officials promptly investigated charges that a small group of students disrupted a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren.

SANTA ANA - An Orange County Superior Court jury on Friday convicted 10 of the so-called Irvine 11 on two misdemeanor charges to conspire and then disrupt a February 2010 speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren at UC Irvine. Charges against one defendant had been tentatively dismissed, pending completion of 40 hours of community service at the Someone Cares Soup Kitchen in Costa Mesa. The remaining 10 were sentenced to three years of informal probation and 56 hours of community service.

Editor's note: This updated version changes a description of UC Irvine student Hadeer Soliman's demeanor. IRVINE — It was like any other day at UC Irvine's Cross-Cultural Center, a hub where campus groups congregate for official events or just hang out. Some students were chatting socially while others were buried in their books. A small group gathered outside on prayer rugs facing Mecca. They belonged to UCI's Muslim Student Union, one of the most visible groups on campus.

A leading Los Angeles Jewish rights organization on Tuesday came out in support of the Orange County district attorney's decision to file criminal charges against 11 students who interrupted a speech by the Israeli ambassador to the United States. In a statement on its website, the Simon Wiesenthal Center commended District Atty. Tony Rackauckas, who charged the so-called "Irvine 11" with two misdemeanor counts each of planning to and disrupting a public meeting or lawful assembly.

SANTA ANA — Tom Reinhart-Marean marched with 40 to 50 demonstrators to the street corner outside of the Orange County district attorney's office here to condemn a reported Orange County Grand Jury investigation into college students who interrupted a speech by an Israeli official last year at UC Irvine. "Indicting these students would have a severe chilling effect on the exercise of free speech on campus and elsewhere," said Reinhart-Marean, a Newport Beach resident and former pastor at First United Methodist Church in Orange.

College campuses have a long tradition of embracing free speech, dissent and protest, even when it reaches an uncomfortable pitch the way it did at UC Irvine in February. They have long been relatively safe havens for young adults to air their views and make some noise, particularly in a country where exercising such rights is discouraged in the so-called "real world" of adult responsibility that awaits students the day after they toss their mortarboards. Now sometimes these protests get a bit out of hand, but all in all, college is the time and place for (mostly)

Editor's note: This corrects the spelling of Hussam Ayloush's name. NEWPORT BEACH — University of California President Mark Yudof spoke before an estimated 350 people at Temple Bat Yahm on Thursday night, telling the predominantly Jewish crowd that he doesn't condone the anti-Semitic statements occasionally made on UC campuses, not just at UC Irvine. But the reality, Yudof said, is that there is nothing he can do about it because they are protected under the 1st Amendment, which allows for free speech and the right to assemble.

UC Irvine hasn't always been characterized as a politically active campus. Unlike UC Berkeley, which for many years was known as a hotbed of political demonstrations and activists' antics, UCI seemed the sleepier and less radical campus in the University of California system. That all seemed to change in the 2009-10 academic year. In the nine months that spanned that school year, UCI's student body faced budget cuts, fee increases, racial tensions and student arrests, spurring students to hold up signs, grab microphones and make their opinions known.

UC Irvine officials announced Friday that they have cut in half the suspension of the Muslim Student Union but declined a formal request to lift it altogether. The suspension was reduced from an academic year to half of an academic year. The club, though not individual students, was suspended following an investigation into the alleged disruption of a February speech given by the Israeli ambassador. The MSU will not be allowed to book campus facilities for organizational purposes, raise funds, or set up a booth to recruit students from Sept.