UC Irvine campus. Photo: UC Irvine.

University of California-Irvine (UCI) administrators have not responded to a letter from Hillel International complaining about the “unacceptably slow nature of the investigation” into a student disruption earlier this month of an on-campus event featuring Israeli reservists, a Hillel representative told The Algemeiner on Friday.

In the May 30th letter signed by top Hillel leadership, the administrative response to the incident that ended in a police escort leading program attendees out of the building was said to be “causing great loss of confidence in the process within the Jewish community, particularly since it seems to be a repetition of last year’s process” — a reference to the extreme demonstration led by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) in May 2016 during an on-campus screening of a film about the Israeli army, which resulted only in a written warning to the group. That warning expired in March.

SJP was behind this year’s protest as well, which Hillel said “strongly indicate[s] that the slap on the hand they received for last year’s disruption had no impact on SJP’s behavior, and that the likelihood of another incident in the absence of sincere discipline is great.”

“The disrupters also bragged about their intentional disrespect for the UCI Administration’s warning not to disrupt, and asserted their intention to continue to disrupt events whose speakers they oppose, in total disregard of university rules and the free speech rights of others,” Hillel noted, pointing to comments by protesters caught on video.

Additionally, according to Hillel, “at least three of the disrupters…were identified as members of student government,” behavior that might be in violation of the UCI Senate’s Code of Ethics.

The letter was sent to the UCI chancellor and vice provost.

Representatives from those offices did not immediately respond to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment.