UC-Berkeley Suspends Lecturer for Bringing His Anti-Israel Politics Into the Classroom

UC-Berkeley Suspends Lecturer for Bringing His Anti-Israel Politics Into the Classroom

The anti-Israel thing is a little bit like Trump Derangement Syndrome. These people can’t not talk about it.

Berkeley has suspended a computer science instructor for bringing his anti-Israel politics into the classroom.

He shared his views on the war in Gaza and drew attention to his hunger strike.

It was found that he “misused the classroom for the purpose of political advocacy.”

🧵 pic.twitter.com/PBsCBqdHCP

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) December 11, 2025

The Daily Cal reports:

UC Berkeley suspends lecturer Peyrin Kao for pro-Palestinian speech in the classroom

UC Berkeley administration has suspended lecturer Peyrin Kao for the spring 2026 semester without pay for pro-Palestinian political remarks made in the classroom.

The six-month suspension was enacted following a recommendation letter issued by Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Benjamin Hermalin, in which he claimed Kao misused the classroom “for the purpose of political advocacy” during the spring 2024 and fall 2025 semesters.

Following the suspension, STEM4Palestine, a campus group Kao helped found, announced plans to initiate a “mass hunger strike” this Wednesday. The group insists campus administration reinstate Kao while demanding “the divestment of UC funds from the genocide in Gaza,” a cause the lecturer has championed.

Jessica Conte, a field representative for UC-AFT, the union that represents lecturers on campus, said it plans to file a grievance against Kao’s suspension. Conte said the union alleges the suspension was made “without any standard of just cause.”

Kao, a lecturer in the electrical engineering and computer sciences, or EECS, department, has been an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights, and this fall began a 38-day hunger strike to protest the use of technology during Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

In the suspension recommendation letter, Hermalin cited this strike alongside other comments made in a lecture hall as the reasoning for the suspension.

Kao told students in his Computer Science 61B lecture that he was undergoing a “starvation diet” but did not elaborate during class. Instead, he provided students with a link to his website where they could learn more. The website said his starvation diet was in support of EECS4Palestine, the previous name of STEM4Palestine.

In the violations findings letter, Hermalin compared “the visible physical toll” of Kao’s hunger strike and the “adverse consequences it may have had” on his ability to teach, to a professor who might wear a political T-shirt. He alleged Kao’s hunger strike violated Regents Policy 2301, which states instructors may not use the classroom for “political indoctrination” or instruction of content outside the scope of the course.

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