Graduate student Ashley Wardle once fought to prevent CSU tuition hikes, now she does battle with SDSU to keep her academic record clean

By Sandy Coronilla, Investigations Editor  and Carl Hensley, Staff Writer

Two months ago, when San Diego State graduate student Ashley Wardle decided to attend a statewide protest on Nov. 16 of a California State University Board of Trustees meeting in Long Beach, she hadn’t envisioned being arrested.

Before the arrest, Wardle said, “An officer pepper sprayed me.”

“He hit me on my back with a baton. When another student from a different school stood between me and the officer, he was hit and arrested, too.”

The protest was held in response to a proposed, and now approved, 9 percent system-wide tuition increase. Beginning this fall, student tuition will increase by $498 a year for all full-time undergraduate students attending CSU schools.

Additional cuts to higher education within the state system amount to $650 million for the academic year, according to the CSU Media Relations Specialist Erik Fallis.

These cuts are what prompted people like Wardle to converge on the meeting of the financial board that day in November. The protest made headlines throughout the state after protesters caused a glass door at the chancellor’s office to shatter. Despite the protesters’ outrage, the board voted 9-6 to increase tuition.

According to Wardle, protesters were gathered peacefully outside Chancellor Charles B. Reed’s office when some of the meeting’s attendees were kicked out unexpectedly.

She couldn’t say for certain why the attendees were removed from the meeting, but their ousting caused some commotion. She said police began yelling at the protesters to move back, away from the office. Wardle and others refused, she said, because the meeting was still going on.

The next thing Wardle knew she was being handcuffed and sent to jail.

Four students, including Wardle and another undergraduate student from SDSU, were arrested and charged with impeding the police officers on duty that day. She was held in jail for 12 hours before being released. At her arraignment one month later, the district attorney did not file charges against her.

Video of Wardle’s arrest:

Wardle assumed the worst was behind her, but she was wrong.

During the first week of December, she received a letter from SDSU’s Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities conveying that Wardle must attend an informal hearing regarding her alleged misconduct at the protest the month prior.

Accompanied by a union representative, Wardle met with university judicial officer Julie Logan, after which time Logan and her staff were to decide what punishment, if any, Wardle was to receive.

On Jan. 6, Wardle received an email from the center with a proposed settlement agreement that included the sanction of suspension until Dec. 19, 2013, in abeyance.

DOWNLOAD: Read the email sent to Wardle

Basically, as long as Wardle signed the agreement, she could forego a formal disciplinary hearing. This means she could still attend classes at SDSU and graduate this December as she plans to do, but could not hold a leadership position in any campus organization.

Last semester, Wardle was the president of campus organization United Students Against Sweatshops, which succeeded in bringing the first-ever sweatshop-free clothing line, Alta Gracia, to the SDSU Bookstore, which we interviewed her about in Oct. 2011.

“I have first amendment rights,” Wardle said. “They can’t silence them by using the student code of conduct.”

SDSU’s Manager of Media Relations, Gina Jacobs, declined to comment on Wardle’s possible sanctions.

“It is university policy not to comment on the ongoing review of student conduct,” she said. “The Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities will follow its normal protocol for such cases.”

The protocol will bring Wardle face-to-face with Vice President of Student Affairs James R. Kitchen this week to try to resolve the issue. If attempts are unsuccessful, Wardle said she will move forward with a formal hearing rather than accept the settlement proposal sent to her earlier this month.

An onslaught of support for Wardle has prompted the college community to come together. An email campaign has been launched asking SDSU President Elliot Hirshman to grant her amnesty.

Students involved with the Occupy San Diego movement met on campus yesterday at 1:00 p.m. at the Peabody Coffee stand near the Education and Business Administration building to discuss Wardle’s situation and the dangers of using academic sanctions in response to students’ political activities.

Despite the situation Wardle now finds herself in, she believes she did the right thing in November.

“If they continue to raise tuition, students are going to continue to protest,” she said.

For more information visit these sites:

Occupy San Diego event info on Facebook 

Facebook page about the situation

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