Students at UC-Berkeley Threaten Hunger Strike to Reinstate Prof Accused of Stalking
“If someone as respected as her is going through such things at Berkeley, what might the future be for the rest of us?”
An accused stalker? What happened to all the talk about needing to feel ‘safe’ on campus?
KQED News reports:
UC Berkeley Students Threaten Hunger Strike to Reinstate Professor Suspended for Stalking
A growing group of UC Berkeley students has been staging a months-long protest campaign demanding that the university bring a suspended Spanish and Portuguese professor back to campus. They’ve shared testimonies highlighting how influential Ivonne del Valle has been both as a mentor and as a leading scholar at a school with few Latinx faculty.
“Professor del Valle isn’t just any faculty member, she’s the top expert in colonial studies,” said Emily Chamale, a second year UC Berkeley student, at a protest last month. “The question that haunts me is: If someone as respected as her is going through such things at Berkeley, what might the future be for the rest of us?”
But records obtained by KQED paint a troubling picture of what led to del Valle’s suspension. Over three investigations, which looked into behavior that began in 2018 and continued through 2022, the university found del Valle had repeatedly harassed, stalked and retaliated against Joshua Clover, an English and Comparative Literature professor at UC Davis, and then violated orders not to contact him.
Clover declined to comment on the record.
Student supporters contend del Valle was acting out of desperation, believing that she is actually the victim of harassment and online stalking. They are preparing to disrupt the Cal football game against the University of Southern California in an undisclosed manner on Saturday.
“We want Ivonne back,” said Christián González Reyes, a Ph.D. student studying comparative literature, who is organizing with the campaign. “We’re not going to be silent anymore.”
The supporters say del Valle is beloved at the university, where she is the only first-generation Mexican woman among faculty in the school’s Spanish and Portuguese Department.
If del Valle is not reinstated, a group of students plan to stage a hunger strike.
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Comments
“Threaten Hunger Strike”
Your terms are acceptable.
If you think we will strap you to beds, shove tubes down your throat, and pump you full of
Remdesivirnutrition, you’ll have a long wait. That’s what our side does, not ours.“….YOUR side does, not ours.”
I remember when I went on a hunger strike. I was 6 and refused to eat the meatloaf. Got sent to bed without supper.
Is she in jail for the alleged stalking or violations of what sounds like a protective order?
Would the students care if she was?
I believe she is banned from campus. She is allowed to teach remotely. She has been to the police repeatedly, Berkely has initiated three investigations to her charges, but they are pretty weird. She believes the prof in question, who works at UC-Davis, has hacked her computer, read her e-mails, even watched her through her phone’s camera. Then he sends coded messages mocking her through his social media accounts. This has been going on for five years.
Does California now offer iv bag treatment?
Or how about a free trip to Canada, they offer free euthanasia shots…
Let them starve–the employer can’t refuse to take disciplinary action against a stalker without serious liability issues
I have to say that I have never understood the concept of hunger strikes or why anyone would give them a second thought. It’s never made sense to me why anyone should care if someone starves themselves to prove a point? Their idiocy shouldn’t affect policy.
Libertarians believe that since your body is your own property, suicide is your uncontested right. Liberals and others who believe in the concept of interfering with your choices “for your own good” don’t agree. Hunger strikes are effective weapons against such folks.
Why? Even if they don’t think it’s your right to kill yourself, why would they care? Why would they give in to you just to make you eat?
I wouldn’t expect such a naive response from someone of your caliber.
Why don’t you ask “them?” It’s happened enough times in history that there are plenty of people to ask, from prison wardens to the British Raj.
It’s because hunger strikes are weaponized guilt trips. If “you let them” die, then “their blood is on your hands” in the court of public opinion — which invariably represents the opinion of stupid white chicks and the stupid white chick-adjacent.
Especially when exactly the same shit is going on today. Hamas uses women and children as living shields, because it makes Israelis the bad guys for shooting at Hamas. Weaponized guilt trips to poison the opinion of a public that is too stupid to see who is really putting these people in danger in the first place.
Hunger Strikes = a self correcting issue.
A couple of them could do with a few weeks of a no-calorie diet.
MK LOL
I would love to sit down across from them with a nice piece of cajun fried chicken,. large salad, baked potato, pinto beans, fried onions, and sweet tea
with a fan at my back so they could smell it all … and smile at them as I eat…
All they’re going to do is not eat dessert.
/drama OMG, we’re staving you heartless savages – comply with our demands!
“we are going on a hunger strike”!
“Ok” shrugs and walks off.
“Wait! You have to listen to our demands”!
“No I don’t”
“But they are important”!
“No, they aren’t”
Exaggerated sense of self-importance much? smh
Ah, the vagaries of youth! Total dedication to a ridiculous cause. Actually, intermittent fasting is all the rage. Not eating for a day or two is supposed to be very healthy. And, who knows, it might lead to some intellectual clarity.