Freedomedia

The UC Berkeley police arrested Angela Miller outside the chancellor’s house around 11:30 p.m. on Friday, December 11. But although the Alameda County District Attorney has dropped all charges against the 20-year-old junior and the seven others arrested that night, Miller remains prohibited from entering campus under an interim suspension.

On Monday of that week, activists moved into Wheeler Hall, a university classroom building, for a 24-hour-week-long demonstration they called Live Week. Police didn’t shut down the demonstration until around 4:30 Friday morning. Dozens of students woke up to find out they were under arrest. In all, 66 people were charged with misdemeanor trespassing and taken to Santa Rita jail.

After police raided Wheeler Hall, the organizers decided to move a planned concert to an off-campus co-op. Following the show, a group of concert-goers marched to the campus.

“Somewhere between 40 to 70 individuals showed up outside the chancellors’ house,” said university spokesperson Dan Mogoluf. “Some portion of them were carrying lit torches. Those torches were thrown at the house, heavy objects were also thrown at the windows in what appeared to have been an attempt to break them and to gain entry into the house, possibly, again this is according to UCPD.”

Police charged the eight people arrested that night with numerous felonies including, threatening an education official, rioting, attempted burglary, attempted arson of an occupied building, felony vandalism and assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer.

After being held over the weekend on more than $130,000 bail, the district attorney chose not to file any charges against them at their arraignment and ordered their release.

Two of those arrested, Zach Bowin and Angela Miller, are students at UC Berkeley. The university filed an interim suspension that barred them from coming on campus or speaking to students and university employees.

Stephen Rosenbaum is a lecturer at Berkeley law school. He is advising both Bowin and miller on their student conduct hearings.

“Both of these students were served a notice of interim suspension. They’re identical notices, which were also served on the UC Davis students,” said Rosenbaum. “And it recites about six sections of the UC campus code of student conduct and then almost no facts in support of it.”

While Bowin’s suspension was relaxed and he will be able to attend classes this semester, a student conduct panel decided on Wednesday not to loosen miller’s suspension.

During the hearing, the administration showed a university press release and a photograph showing miller holding a torch as evidence. Police seized that photo from an independent journalist who was reporting outside the chancellor’s house. That reporter, David Morse, was also arrested that night.

The panel said in a letter to miller that it decided not allow miller to return to class in part because it was unclear of her commitment to her studies, that she didn’t demonstrate any positive contributions she made to the university, and because she didn’t show any remorse.

Rosenbaum said the outcomes might differ because Miller didn’t have a lawyer present for the hearing.

“The difference is because I was able to find out about Zach Bowin’s situation in time, last semester, I was able to represent him at a hearing where we got most of those restrictions lifted. “Unfortunately I was not aware of Angela Miller’s situation until a day about a day after her hearing was actually held. So she had the same conditions imposed on her as Zach and what’s worse is because she’s living in university leased housing, one of the co-ops, they’re telling her that she has to leave her house as of, I think it’s 5 p.m. this evening.”

But Rosenbaum said Miller plans to stay at her co-op despite the university’s demands.

“The university cannot engage in what’s called self-help eviction. It’s been the law for a number of years in California —and most states— where the landlord can’t come out with the sheriff and put your furniture and your clothing and your belongings on the sidewalk. We don’t operate in the wild west anymore,” said Rosenbaum. “Furthermore as long as Angela continues to be a registered student at the university, the Berkeley student cooperative is not able to evict her from her housing, and if they try to do that — I don’t believe they will — she has a due process to go through. Fortunately the Berkeley student cooperative does believe in due process in ways that the University of California, Berkeley, does not.”

Mogoluf, the UC Berkeley spokesperson said the university is forbidden by law from discussing specifics about students facing disciplinary charges.

“I feel like my rights have been taken away as a student, i feel like the uc has wrongfully criminalized me and it has taken unlawful actions. I feel like the university has overly punished me for nothing,” said Miller. “But I also feel that in all this trouble that’s being caused, there’s a whole community of listeners there, and I feel like they are helping me to win the fight for our education.”

         

UC Berkeley law lecturer discusses the Office of Student Conduct from Josh Wolf on Vimeo.

Angela Miller was thrown in jail and held on more than $100,000 bail after she was arrested from a crowd gathered outside UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s home. But even after the DA dropped all the charges against the eight who were arrested, the university is refusing to allow Miller to return to class.

No one has shown evidence that any of those arrested broke any laws when they joined a march on Dec. 10 that resulted in some property damage to the chancellor’s on-campus house.

But on Tuesday, the student conduct office told Miller that she had to meet with a disciplinary panel the following day about her interim suspension. She said she figured the meeting was just a formality so that they could relax her suspension before classes resume Tuesday. The university had already loosened Zachin Bowin’s suspension, the other UC Berkeley student arrested that night, and the two appear to be in the same situation.

Miller brought a fellow student to the meeting as her advisor and a few supporters stood outside the room while the panel met. After discussing her fate, the panel decided to maintain her suspension and continue to bar her from campus. The suspension order also prohibits her from speaking to any of her fellow students as well as university faculty and staff. It should be noted that university spokesperson Dan Mogoluf has said he doesn’t know of any instance in which the university actually punished a student for exercising their First Amendment right to speak to others and said the university is reviewing that provision in its boilerplate suspension order.

The student conduct panel told Miller that since she lives in a student co-op that leases its property from a university-owned building she would also need to move.

Berkeley Law School lecturer Steve Rosenbaum, who advised Bowin during his hearing, has agreed to represent Miller.

In this video taken outside of the student conduct office when Bowin appeared before a hearing, Rosenbaum — who had just been asked to leave for being “disruptive” for acting on his client’s behalf — describes his reaction to the student conduct process, which now threatens Miller future at UC Berkeley.