Roughly 200 students and faculty members — wearing surgical masks and black tape over their mouths to symbolize censorship, and bearing signs with the slogan “Art is not a crime” — engaged in a “silent march” on April 8 to protest the university’s ongoing investigation of visual-arts associate professor Ricardo Dominguez.

The university launched a formal investigation after Dominguez and the b.a.n.g. computer lab — a collection of UCSD students and faculty who use technology as performance art ­— staged a Virtual Sit-In during the March 4 “Day of Action” protest. There, he invited people through online advertising to initiate a computer program he designed to overload and potentially crash the UC Office of the President Web site.

Approximately 400 participants took part in the sit-in. The program also redirected some links on the site to a 404 error message that replaced the typical “URL cannot be found” text with phrases like “There is no transparency found at the UC Office of the President.”

Dominguez said the incident was a form of virtual civil disobedience, a part of the body of work that Dominguez was both known and hired for at UCSD in 2005.

Dominguez said that university officials had been informally investigating him since January for his involvement in creating a cell-phone application that helps illegal immigrants safely cross the U.S. border with Mexico by leading them to fresh water and other forms of aid.

According to Dominguez, the university has threatened to strip him of his tenure. Tenure allows professors extra job security by requiring just cause before their contracts can be terminated.

Upon request from the UCOP, Assistant Vice Chancellor of UCSD Audit & Management Advisory Services Stephanie Burke scheduled a meeting with Dominguez on April 8 to investigate his involvement in the March 4 Virtual Sit-In.

A small group of protesters accompanied Dominguez to the meeting, where he asked the crowd whether or not he should go inside.

According to Dominguez, the consensus was that he should delay the meeting until he had consulted a lawyer.

“The community said we could either hold this meeting outside with these 200 people present as witnesses, or we would have to wait until I had legal counsel,” Dominguez said. “We agreed to postpone the meeting.”

Warren College senior and visual-arts student Holly Eskew asked the American Civil Liberties Union to become involved in Dominguez’s case. She said ACLU attorneys plan to review Dominguez’s case this week, and will determine how the UCOP investigation relates to free speech.

Dominguez’ cell-phone app has received additional scrutiny from other sources. Earlier this month, three congressmen — Rep. Duncan Hunter (R–Calif.), Rep. Brian Bilbray (R–Calif.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R–Calif.) — drafted an open letter to Chancellor Marye Anne Fox earlier this month, urging her to stop supplying university funds for Dominguez’s project.

“The issue is with the actual technology he is working to create,” Joe Kasper, Hunter’s spokesman, said. “It’s problematic to Congressman Hunter for two reasons: One is that its sole purpose is to help foreign nationalities illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border, and two is that its being funded by tax-payer dollars. The university can step forward and stop acting as a platform to help propel the technology forward, which is what seems to be the case right now.”

Dominguez said he does not plan to alter or postpone the cell-phone project.

“The researchers and myself deeply believe in its conceptual frame — we believe that art is not a crime,” Dominguez said. “We also believe that it is important to bring to the foreground the crisis that is part of the border, and to hold accountable those communities that just let people die in an unconsidered way. As long as the project continues to work in that way, we do not see why it should not continue.”

Eskew said the visual-arts community will stand behind Dominguez throughout the investigation.

“We are standing behind him in terms of the value of his work, and as an individual,” Eskew said.

Readers can contact Ayelet Bitton at [email protected].