An Analysis and Recommendations Concerning an Incident in Which Muslim Students Interrupted an Israel Official Speaking on a College Campus

• Author: Gilbert Geis
• DOI: 10.1177/2153368712441952
• Published date: 01 April 2012
• Date: 01 April 2012

An Analysis and

Recommendations

Concerning an Incident in

Which Muslim Students

Interrupted an Israel

Official Speaking on

a College Campus

Gilbert Geis

1

Abstract

Eleven young men, eight of them members of the Muslim Student Association at the

University of California, Irvine, and three from UC Riverside, as part of a planned

stratagem, in turn stood up and heckled the Israeli Ambassador to the United States for

about 5 min during his public presentation on the Irvine campus. They were ejected

from the auditorium and punished by the University. Subsequently, the local district

attorney filed misdemeanor charges against the group and won a conviction. The article

provides details of the event, the varying reactions to the behavior and to the criminal

case, and describes and analyzes a key state Supreme Court opinion considering the

constitutionality of the statute employed against the students. Finally, recommenda-

tions are offered as a means to avoid what the writer regards as an unfortunate and

perhaps biased official action against members of an ethnic minority.

Keywords

race and public opinion, bias in the criminal justice system, Arab Americans, race/

ethnicity, terrorism, race and courts

Racism and other forms of discrimination in the criminal justice system have become

considerably more camouflaged since the days of slavery and the times when Ku Klux

1

Department of Criminology, Law and Society, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Gilbert Geis, 970 Poppy Lane, Corona del Mar, CA 92625, USA

Email: ggeis@uci.edu

Race and Justice

2(2) 138-147

ªThe Author(s) 2012

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DOI: 10.1177/2153368712441952

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