SANTA ANA, Calif. — Orange County prosecutors have filed misdemeanor charges against 39 additional protesters accused of failing to disperse after a May 15 pro-Palestinian protest at the University of California, Irvine was deemed unlawful by Irvine police.

The new charges were announced on Wednesday, hours before the original 10 people charged in connection to the protest made their first court appearance while dozens of supporters gathered inside and in front of the Santa Ana courthouse.

The additional defendants were sent letters with orders to appear at Orange County Superior Court in November or December, when they may enter pleas.

The 39 face a charge of failure to disperse, prosecutors said. Two were also charged with resisting arrest.

A 40th new defendant faces misdemeanor charges of vandalism and resisting arrest.

The 40 defendants are 19 to 49 years old. Most are from Orange County, with some from Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties and one was identified as an Ohio resident.

“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) transcends peaceful assembly will not be tolerated.”

The decision to file charges against protestors has been condemned by the Los Angeles-area Council on American-Islamic Relations, which previously accused prosecutors of being part of an effort to “intimidate, harass and silence pro-Palestinian activism on campus.”

“We believe these charges are very politically motivated,” said Dina Chehata, a civil rights attorney with the council who attended Wednesday’s hearing. “They were engaged in a peaceful protest.”

In mid-September, prosecutors announced that misdemeanor charges were being filed against 10 protesters related to the protest at UC Irvine.

In all, the 50 defendants include two UCI professors, a teaching assistant, 26 students and 21 others.

The original 10 were charged with failure to disperse, while two were also charged with resisting arrest. They all appeared before a court commissioner on Wednesday in a courtroom packed with supporters.

Commissioner Randall S. Bethune allowed three defendants to enter into a diversion program; they are to complete 30 hours of community service within three months. If these three, who didn’t have criminal records, do so they would avoid a misdemeanor conviction.

The other seven defendants had their arraignments, when pleas are entered, continued to November or December and were allowed to remain free on their own recognizance.

Prosecutors have said that most, if not all, of those charged for failure to disperse could get into the diversion program rather than face time behind bars.

UCI officials have not made clear what impact the charges will have on the UC Irvine faculty members and students, whether the criminal charges or a conviction would jeopardize any of their academic careers.

UCI officials did not respond to requests for comment this week.

When the first 10 defendants were charged, UCI officials said in a statement that the university “has a long history of supporting free speech and peaceful protests. (But) all members of the UC Irvine community remain subject to all applicable laws, policies and relevant codes of conduct while engaging in protest activities.”

The UCI demonstration in May came in the midst of a wave of protests at college campuses across the country related to the Israel-Hamas war.

Tents on the campus erected by protesters stood for two weeks, beginning in late April. Those in the camps asked the university to divest from companies and institutions with ties to Israel and weapon manufacturers, to support an end to the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip, and to reinvest funds toward students and workers. There were other demands as well.

The confrontation between protesters and police was sparked after the crowd swelled to a reported 500 people on the afternoon of May 15, and a small group barricaded themselves inside the Physical Sciences Lecture Hall, a building adjacent to an encampment.

Officers in riot gear from more than a dozen law enforcement agencies were involved in clearing the group from the lecture hall, as well as those in the encampment. Officers took 47 people, including 27 students, into custody. The students were later placed on interim suspension by the university.

After the crackdown, UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman said he was “brokenhearted,” saying the university had exhausted all possible alternatives before resorting to police intervention.

The decision to call in law enforcement drew criticism from some faculty members, who argued it had violated the protester’s right to free speech and assembly and had jeopardized their workplace safety.

“I think the process has been important to the DA and also the chancellor at UC Irvine to essentially apply as much discomfort and anxiety to those of us who were arrested as possible to dissuade us from continuing to use our free speech rights to expose a genocide in Palestine,” said Brook Haley, a lecturer in the humanities department at UCI who was among the first wave charged.

Haley said he went to the encampment on May 15 out of concern for the safety of students after learning of the increased law enforcement presence.

“I went in an attempt to be between the students and law enforcement as a visual symbol that this was not OK — that this is not a bunch of overreacting kids, these are serious concerns that need listening to, and I think (the protesters) were doing it in a legitimate if discomforting but legal way,” he said after the hearing.

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