As riot police arrested 50 people during a May 2024 pro-Palestinian demonstration at the University of California, Irvine, Tiffany Willoughby-Herard was escorted away by riot police, her hands zip-tied behind her back.

A video of the tenured professor speaking passionately to reporters as she was arrested circulated widely on social media. “We cannot have a genocidal foreign policy in a democracy,” she says in the video. “These police officers out here today – that’s thousands of students’ scholarships.”

On Thursday, Willoughby-Herard and 10 others will appear in court facing three misdemeanor charges including “resisting arrest”, “resisting a peace officer with the threat of violence” and “failure to disperse”.

“It was bedlam and chaos and a revelation that there was a real failure in leadership and no one really in charge,” she added. “Basically $2.9m was spent on swatting the entire university community. …

“The thing that was so egregious about what happened on May 15 is because of bias and discrimination around Palestine, the response was not an orderly or thoughtful response.”

Thousands of scholars around the US and abroad have signed petitions opposing the charges against her. An additional 39 individuals were charged on 16 October in relation to the May protest, with their arraignments scheduled in the coming weeks. Twelve protesters have accepted a deal to enter a pretrial diversion program in response to the charges.

Hundreds of police officers in riot gear from agencies around the region descended on the UC Irvine campus on 15 May after reports of a Gaza solidarity encampment occupying a lecture hall. Fifty people were arrested in clearing the protest.

A professor of global and international studies, Willoughby-Herard said she was facing “the most punitive criminal senior charges of any of the 49 arrestees”. All other protesters except one are facing one misdemeanor count each of failing to disperse, while one other protester is also facing a resisting arrest charge.

She claimed she has struggled with injuries she sustained during her arrest that continue to cause her pain due to neuropathy in her leg she said was caused by police while arresting her. She also said she has faced harassment and doxxing, and has received rape and death threats.

“I walk stooped over. I’m in a doctor’s appointment every single day, I can barely drive my children to school without excruciating pain,” she said.

The university has not disciplined her or another lecturer who was arrested and charged, though students have faced repercussions from the school that have included suspensions. Five students who led the university’s encampment in support of Gaza filed a lawsuit over the summer against UC Irvine, alleging their due process was violated when they were suspended.

More than 3,200 people have been arrested in the US during pro-Palestinian protests, according to an analysis by the Appeal. The analysis shows that of 935 arrests, 440 cases are still pending, 120 people have been formally charged, charges for 181 have been dismissed, 33 cases were sent to pretrial diversion programs and one protester was sentenced.

After the charges were announced by the Orange county district attorney’s office in September 2024, a truck billboard drove around the UC Irvine campus with the names, faces and charges of 10 individuals charged, including Willoughby-Herard, launched by the far-right activist group Accuracy in Media.

There has been significant organizing in the US and abroad in protest of the charges against Willoughby-Herard, one of few US professors with pending charges related to pro-Palestinian protests.

The American Political Science Association condemned her arrest. An open letter signed by more than 8,000 faculty, scholars and students around the US and abroad has been circulating, calling for the charges against her to be dropped. Another petition protesting the charges has been circulated by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair).

Annie McClanahan, associate professor of English at UC Irvine and chair of the Irvine Faculty Association, criticized the charges and the response to the protests by UC Irvine.

“It’s very clear, looking at the way that charge-stacking is being used against Dr Willoughby-Herard in particular, that there’s a racial component of that as well, and the fact the campus administration has essentially done nothing to request the DA office to not pursue these charges, is really concerning,” she said. Willoughby-Herard is Black. Among the 50 protesters charged, only one other protester, a Latina graduate student, faces any additional charges beyond failing to disperse.

A spokesperson for the Orange county district attorney’s office said in response to the charges and allegations of bias that everyone arrested was treated equally under the law.

“Freedom of speech is a right afforded to everyone, but university campuses are not immune from criminal consequences when peaceful protests cross the line into criminal behavior,” they said.

McClanahan argued the charges, doxxing and harassment of protesters has had a chilling effect on campus activism.

“The idea that the campus’s response to that is going to be to participate in this political and legal repression, it’s just crazy to me,” she added.

A spokesperson for UC Irvine said that the school “has a longstanding commitment to upholding free speech and peaceful protest. While we encourage all members of the campus community to exercise their right to express their views, they are also expected to comply with all applicable laws, university policies, and codes of conduct while doing so.”

They added: “It is important to clarify that the university is not involved in the decision by the Orange County District Attorney’s office to file criminal charges against individuals arrested on campus during the May 15 incident.”

Willoughby-Herard criticized the criminalization of protesters for calling out the use of funds and resources from universities toward “militarism and genocide”, and for pushing for divestment and a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

“You cannot war-machine your way out of massive social problems that actually require study and reflection,” she said.