A representative from UCLA Student Legal Services will run a “Know Your Rights” workshop Friday to educate students about their legal rights in various situations.
Elizabeth Kemper, the director of Student Legal Services, will run the workshop, which will be held in Ackerman Student Union. She said the topics will range from unwarranted police trespassing to racial profiling. The event will be put on by Bruin Alliance, a student group that ran two candidates in last year’s undergraduate student government elections.
“Students can make more informed decisions if they understand the consequences of their actions,” Kemper said. “Rights and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin.”
Bruin Alliance decided to hold the event after several of its members brought up the issue of police trespassing in response to noise complaints, said Taylor Bazley, a fourth-year political science student and external chair for Bruin Alliance.
Nicole Fossier, a fourth-year political science student and the director of student outreach for Bruin Alliance, said that while at a friend’s apartment during a party, police entered through the unlocked front door without a warrant in response to a noise complaint and told all the guests to go home.
Fossier said this incident, along with several others, is what inspired Bruin Alliance to hold a workshop to inform students of the rights they have in these kinds of situations.
“We realized there (are) so few students out there that know what their rights are when police show up,” said Mike McBirnie, a fifth-year aerospace engineering student and research chair for the group.
The workshop will explore three major topics: alcohol and drugs, the UCLA Undie Run and various kinds of interactions with law enforcement, Kemper said.
The alcohol and drugs portion of the workshop will inform students about DUIs and what to do when pulled over by the police. The portion devoted to the UCLA Undie Run will cover disciplinary actions that students may encounter as a result of indecent exposure and public intoxication, among other issues, Kemper said.
Kemper said she thinks students should know about the rights available to them, but they must also be aware of the responsibilities that come with their rights to properly assert them.
“If I can inform students of their rights, they can make more informed decisions,” Kemper said.