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Following a heated five-hour sentencing hearing Tuesday, three UC Berkeley students—Michael Smith, Snehal Shingavi and Rachel Odes—are waiting to learn what, if any, punishments the university will mandate for their actions during a March 23 campus anti-war protest.  

After hearing proposed punishments from campus Judicial Officer Neal Rajmaira and a spirited defense from the students, a panel of professors, staff and students has one week to draw up a letter spelling out its own recommendations to Dean of Students Karen Kenney. Once the recommendations are submitted, the students will be able to make an appeal before Kenney decides what, if any, punishments the students will receive.  

During an earlier hearing on Oct. 14, all three students were found responsible for one count each of disturbing the peace and non-compliance with the directives of a university officer, violations of the student code of conduct. 

Shingavi and Odes could receive 20 hours of community service and a letter of warning in their file that would be reported should the students apply for a government job or waive their rights to the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Smith, who was also found to have committed a third and separate violation of resisting a university officer, faces a one-semester suspension that would start next spring. 

Rajmaira said the suggested penalties fall within a range where a nonreportable letter of warning—one that isn’t reported to law enforcement or governmental agencies—is the mildest penalty and full expulsion the most severe. 

From the onset, the students have called the disciplinary proceedings unfair and unwarranted. They denounced the recommended punishments Tuesday, charging that the university is trying to railroad them for a peaceful event. 

The students have drawn support from across the country, and activists signed a full page ad that ran in the Daily Californian’s Monday edition. One signatory, Green party gubernatorial candidate Peter Camejo, spoke at a press conference before Monday’s hearing, accompanied by Rachel Ode’s mother, Jackie McGlamery.  

“The U.S. is in violation of international law,” Camejo said, “and I’m here to say that the university should respect international law. These students are trying to defend the Constitution and international law and should be given medals, not expelled.” 

During Tuesday’s hearing, the three students vigorously challenged the proposed punishments, and complained that the university had violated their right to due process by not giving them sufficient time to mount an adequate defense for the earlier hearing. They were also challenged the university’s decision to press charges stemming from a peaceful event that they said the university knew about well in advance. 

One witness the students called Tuesday was Marcia Riley, Director of Student Group Administration for the Office of Student Life. She testified that she had talked to protest organizers “at least half a dozen times,” before the event, adding that she had seen several sit-ins in the past and that “this one was not more disruptful than others.” 

Shingavi, a veteran campus organizer, said he thought more preparation and communication had gone into the planning for the protest than for any other in the past 20 years. 

“I’ve been arrested five times for political protest, and the precedent for sit-ins in the past has been a letter of warning/no report,” said Shingavi, who said that the university was trying unfairly to make examples of the students. 

Shingavi derided the university for capitalizing on its image as the home of the free speech movement while prosecuting students for peaceful protests. 

“It baffles me that the university is willing to go after three protesters while no other university across the country is doing the same thing,” he said. “It will speak volumes to how this university has changed in 30 years if the convictions are handed down.” 

More than 4,000 students appeared for the March event on the steps of Sproul Hall, called to protest the beginning on the American war on Iraq. The arrests began after 400 of the students entered the hall a sit-in. 

Tuesday’s hearing grew heated when Rajmaira accused Smith of participating in a “racially motivated” incident two years ago where—Rajmaira claimed—Smith had been arrested by Berkeley officers after confronting a group of Asian men. Rajmaira called the event “a very serious case,” and cited it as the principal reason for increasing Smith’s punishment beyond the letter of warning and community service he recommended for the others. 

An angry Smith called Rajmaira’s characterization of the incident “untrue, offensive and disgusting.” 

“It is true that I was involved in a fight off campus,” said Smith, who said he had confronted not the Asian men but the officer—who he thought was harassing the Asians. He said Rajmaira’s version of the incident proved “that [the university] is going to go after us in any way to railroad us. It shows that [Mr. Rajmaira] is not interested in the truth.” 

The tribunal then retreated into a closed-door session in which tribunal members examined the university report and consulted both sides. When the panel re-emerged, they voted to reject Rajimira’s account of the incident. 

Both sides continued to exchange words over the incident, with the students accusing Rajmaira of introducing the allegation in an effort to railroad the defendants and lambasting him for trying to label Smith a racist. 

Rajmaira responded in an equally hostile tone, “I’m not backing off one bit from what I think these records indicate.”  

At that point, panel chair and Physics Professor Burt Jacobson raised his hand to silence both sides. 

The three students also questioned the process used to single them out for punishment. When they cross-examined Rajmaira’s assistant, he said the three had been singled out for punitive action after he checked the records of all 119 students originally arrested at the protest and found that only Odes, Smith, Shingavi and one other student (who later accepted a plea bargain) had prior offenses. 

That question proved compelling enough to convince Jacobson to propose conducting his own independent records check to make certain that the three hadn’t been unfairly targeted—but he quickly learned that his inquiry might be derailed by issues of student privacy. 

The hearing closed after both sides finished their arguments and rebuttals and Jacobson announced that the panel would issue its recommendations in one week. 

Most of the small crowd of spectators quickly departed, leaving the room to the three students and a few supporters, who engaged in a spirited discussion of what had just happened. 

“I knew beforehand the university was going after us and that they wanted a conviction instead of the truth,” Smith said. “But I’m a little flabbergasted at the tactics [Rajmaira] used.” 

Shingavi agreed. “The arrogance of Rajmaira betrays the university’s idea that this is not a vendetta,” he said. 

Odes was more positive, saying that she thought the hearing allowed the students to make their case—but he agreed that they were under attack. “It proves how much they want to convict us,” she said. 

Rajmaira told a reporter he “was happy both sides were able to appear and I am awaiting the panels’ findings and recommendations.”