IRVINE – A coalition of civil rights groups and professional bar associations have condemned UCI’s recent decision to ban the Muslim Student Union after students disrupted an Israeli ambassador’s speech on campus earlier this year.

Fifteen groups throughout the country – including the Asian Law Caucus, Afghan-American Bar Association, Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, South Asian Bar Association – Northern California and National Lawyers Guild – are urging UCI officials to abandon all efforts to suspend the Muslim student organization.

“Taking the unprecedented step to ban this group will memorialize UCI as a campus that violates its students’ constitutional rights, and will have negative repercussions that will reverberate around the country,” according to a letter signed by the groups and sent to the chancellor’s office late last week.

“Such a decision would amount to selective punishment of a group whose ideas are disfavored by the U.C. administration, and sets an extremely dangerous precedent that threatens all Americans who exercise their Constitutional rights to freedom of expression and association.”

Campus officials banned the Muslim Student Union for one year, placed the group on disciplinary probation for another year and ordered 50 hours of collective community service. The suspension goes into effect Sept. 1, if officials reject an appeal submitted by Muslim students.

“I don’t have a timeframe on that,” said university spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon about the appeal. “Again it’s been a confidential process so I don’t know where they are.”

The suspension was the result of a months-long internal review by the university following the arrest of 11 students during Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren’s speech on campus in February. Oren was repeatedly interrupted by the union members.

The Jewish Federation had obtained documents from the university through the Freedom of Information Act and released information last month about the Muslim union’s suspension. Many local Jewish groups applauded the university’s action citing that the students’ behavior disregarded civil discourse and school policies.

Muslim advocacy groups, however, said the suspension was severe, draconian and selective. Banning the group would deprive Muslims students from a critical campus resource, they said.

Previous protests of speakers on campus have never resulted in such severe sanctions, according to the coalition’s letter to UCI officials. Student protesters who disrupted Jagdish Bhagwati, a Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellows Series speaker in 2006, were not reprimanded and did not face any sanctions, according to the letter.

However, Lawhon said that the coalition “has no way of knowing whether that earlier group was disciplined or not because the proceedings are not public.”

“I don’t know how they can say that since nobody has public knowledge of that,” Lawhon added.

Mahdis Keshavarz, spokeswoman for the student group, said the Muslim students, who have not yet heard back from university officials about their appeal, are happy that the civil rights and law groups have taken an interest in their case.

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