For their role in protests in February that led to the close of a US Bank on UC Davis’s campus, poet and professor Joshua Clover and eleven students now face up to eleven years each in prison and $1 million in damages. The charges include twenty counts, per participant, of obstructing movement in a public place, and one count of conspiracy. According to various reports, the charges were brought against Clover and the students at the request of UC Davis administrators.

The protest that Clover and the students engaged in was, according to AlterNet, “a peaceful sit-in at the campus branch of US Bank… an important political action in defense of public funding of the University and against the replacement of that funding by private contracts with corporations.”

The AlterNet piece goes on to say, “Protesters point out that the charges against them serve to position the university favorably in potential litigation with US Bank,” which placed responsibility on the university for all costs suffered by the bank’s closing.

Now, an online petition seeks support in its demand that UC Davis drop all the charges. The group, referred to as the “Davis Dozen,” is scheduled to appear in court on May 10. Learn more and sign the petition at http://davisdozen.org/?page_id=37.

Catch up on the whole story at the Poetry Foundation.

Joshua Clover is a former recipient of the Walt Whitman Award and he currently works as a professor of English literature and critical theory. His two collections of poetry are Madonna anno domini and The Totality for Kids.