Students and Faculty at UC-Berkeley Unhappy About Suspension of Anti-Israel Lecturer

Students and Faculty at UC-Berkeley Unhappy About Suspension of Anti-Israel Lecturer

We covered the suspension in an earlier post. Free speech is suddenly important to the left again.

The College Fix reports:

UC Berkeley community upset at suspension of hunger-struck pro-Palestinian lecturer

University of California Berkeley faculty and students are miffed at the discipline meted out to pro-Palestinian computer and engineering lecturer Peyrin Kao.

Earlier this month, Kao officially was suspended without pay for the spring semester for violations of UC Regents Policy 2301 which, among other things, states “misuse of the classroom by, for example, allowing it to be used for political indoctrination, for purposes other than those for which the course was constituted […] constitutes misuse of the University as an institution.”

But according to The Daily Californian, the Berkeley Faculty Association (a “progressive group that represents about 20% of the university’s tenure-track faculty,” according to Berkeleyside) expressed “concern” that it was the type of political advocacy to which the university objected: pro-Palestinian.

“It is hard to escape the judgment that this appears to be another instance of the ‘Palestine exception’ to free speech,” the group said. “We believe that discipline on this basis threatens the faculty’s fundamental political freedoms as citizens.”

Although Kao previously had been warned about politicking to students (such as giving the URL to a pro-Palestinian website), the BFA’s Celeste Langan said Kao “tried very hard to obey the rules, and then he was accused of violating their spirit.”

(Back in 2011, Langan had participated in an “Occupy Cal” protest “in defiance” of a no-encampment policy and “to resist the conceptual and practical attenuation of the ideal of education as a res publica.”)

The Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate’s Committee on Academic Freedom zeroed in on the university’s contention that the “physical toll” from Kao’s 38-day “hunger strike” (he had consumed an alleged Palestinian-like 250 calories per day consisting of “plain pasta”), wondering if such actually could be interpreted as a form of political advocacy.

“[W]e’re open to the idea that under certain circumstances, nonverbal expression could potentially violate Regents Policy 2301, but if we’re going to be interpreting it that way, I think we need much clearer guidance for faculty,” Committee Chair R. Jay Wallace said.

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.