Saying that “current disciplinary procedures are so badly flawed that they should be abandoned at this time,” more than a hundred Berkeley professors have signed a petition asking administrators to suspend disciplinary proceedings against students who participated in campus protests on November 20 and December 11, 2009.

Citing specific inadequacies in the campus code of conduct and “flagrant instances of bad judgment on the part of those conducting the inquiries,” the petitioners argue that “no just outcome can emerge from these procedures in their current form.” In closing, they ask the university to re-affirm its commitment

to rights of free speech, which include rights to peaceful protest.  If these rights are arbitrarily suspended or abandoned without reflection or if they are restricted without clear justification and communication, we will have dishonored the tradition of free and open expression that has distinguished this campus for decades.  Let us not accept a situation where arbitrary power makes a mockery of those fundamental and enduring rights that we are surely bound to honor and protect.

Signatories to the petition include numerous senior and distinguished faculty.