Prosecutors charge 10 with failing to disperse during California protest

SANTA ANA, California — Prosecutors in Southern California have charged 10 people, including two professors, with failing to disperse during a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of California, Irvine, last spring that led to a confrontation with police, officials said Wednesday.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office said the defendants were two UCI professors and four students. They are all scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 16 to face felony charges, the office said.

“The right to peaceful assembly is a constitutional right and we encourage protesters to exercise their right to peaceful assembly on any issue,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement. “However, criminal activity that goes beyond peaceful assembly will not be tolerated.”

The Attorney General’s Office is still reviewing the evidence to determine whether to file charges against the remaining 40 people arrested in the May campus incident, the statement said.

The university said in a statement that all members of the campus community are subject to “all applicable laws, policies and relevant codes of conduct while participating in protest activities.”

In the spring, university officials said they had allowed a peaceful encampment to remain on campus, even though it violated school policy, but they called in police after a small group barricaded themselves in a lecture hall, supported by a large group of community members outside. Police officers in riot gear sent to the scene made dozens of arrests.

Protest camps sprang up across the US in the spring, including on the campuses of the University of California, such as students demanded that their universities no longer do business with Israel or with companies they believe supported the war in Gaza.

Located in central Orange County, the University of California, Irvine has more than 36,000 students.