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Jesse Cheng announced on Monday that he would be stepping down as Student Regent of the University of California system. The announcement came just days before the final Regents meeting of his term.
The student conduct office at UC Irvine, Cheng’s home campus, ruled in March that Cheng had sexually assaulted a former girlfriend the previous fall. He appealed the finding, stepping down only after his appeal was rejected. (Cheng had admitted to sexual assault in an email to the woman, but later claimed that the confession was false, and written under pressure from his accuser. He was arrested in connection with the incident a few weeks after it allegedly occurred, but released without charges.)
In an era in which the University of California has pursued student activists with the aggressive use of both criminal and campus judicial sanctions, the mild treatment of Cheng — who, though he now denies any wrongdoing, both admitted to and was found guilty of sexual assault — stands out. In particular, it contrasts dramatically with how the university and local prosecutors have treated the “Irvine 11,” a group of students who are currently facing trial for allegedly disrupting a campus speech by the Israeli ambassador to the US.
I’ll admit that I’m ambivalent about the charges against Jesse Cheng. I know Jesse, and I’d like to believe that he’s not capable of what he’s been accused of. But whatever my personal thoughts on his case, the fact is that he was found by a student conduct board to have committed a sexual assault, and given his confession, it’s difficult to argue that the board’s conclusion was egregiously in error.
That Cheng received probation, and was allowed to keep his seat on the UC Regents until he himself chose to give it up, while the Irvine 11 saw the student organization to which they belong suspended and now each face the possibility of six months in jail? That’s not right. That’s not proportionate. That’s not legitimate.
And that disproportion, that illegitimacy, casts the whole University of California judicial system, as well as the UC’s relationship with law enforcement, into question.
Update | Read this post from Reclaim UC for more on the university’s recent history of bungling sexual assault charges. Seriously. Go read it.
Dharun Ravi, the Rutgers student who bragged on Twitter about broadcasting his dorm roommate’s gay hookup on the internet, was indicted on fifteen charges (PDF) earlier today.
Ravi’s roommate, Tyler Clementi — a first-year student just weeks into his first semester at Rutgers when the spying occurred — committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge just days after it began.
The first eight counts of the indictment allege that Ravi recorded Clementi and his partner on one occasion, shared that recording with at least one other person, and attempted to do so again later. They further allege that the spying was either “an attempt to intimidate … because of sexual orientation” or was “reasonably believed” to be so.
Additional counts in the indictment allege that Ravi tampered with evidence in the case by deleting a tweet from Twitter, posting a false tweet, and deleting text messages that he sent to witnesses. It also claims that he interfered with a witness and lied to law enforcement.
According to the New York Daily News, Ravi faces a possible five years in prison if convicted of all charges.
I’ve got to say I’m a bit surprised by this indictment. I’ll have more thoughts later.
Students occupying the administrations building at Sacramento State were rousted by police at three o’clock this morning, halfway through the third night of their action.
Activists staged sit-ins on eleven CSU campuses on Wednesday (and attempted a twelfth, though Long Beach officials closed the administration building before they arrived). Though most of those occupations ended voluntarily within a few hours, the Sac State students decided to stay put.
Relations between students and administrators at the Sac State occupation were mostly amicable until Friday evening, when police arrived to lock down the building. Activists who were already inside were permitted to stay, but no new people — and no new supplies — were allowed entry.
At 3:24 am, according to tweets from the occupiers, campus police in riot gear appeared at the building’s back entrance. They told the group that they had already called for backup from the SFPD, and that students had five minutes to clear the building. “Students made it out safely,” according to the final tweet of the series, “and no arrests were made.”
The folks behind the occupation will be meeting this afternoon to plan their next steps. Follow their blog for more.
Seven of the nine students who “occupied” a high ledge on the face of Berkeley’s Wheeler Hall last month have been charged with trespassing.
The Wheeler ledge action was the first Berkeley protest in recent memory to end in a negotiated settlement with the university, as administrators agreed to drop conduct charges against students who had participated in previous protests … and to forego such charges against the ledge protesters themselves.
But although Berkeley’s chief of police apparently promised one student that he would recommend against criminal charges, that promise was not part of the formal agreement. The students were cited and released when they came down off the ledge, and misdemeanor charges of “trespass with intent to interfere” were brought yesterday.
The seven students who now face charges have previously been arrested in Berkeley protests. The other two, who have not been arrested in the past, were not charged.
See my previous post on the ledge occupation for more on that action.
Several thousand students marched through downtown Montreal on Thursday, demonstrating against government plans to raise tuition for local colleges and universities by more than $1600 over the next five years.
Police say they used pepper spray and stun grenades after a “scuffle” with protesters outside a government building, but one activist who witnessed the events says that students did nothing to provoke the cops.
studentactivism.net 
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