UC-San Diego Profs Face Discipline for Actions at Anti-Israel Encampment

“got into shoving matches”

Posted by Mike LaChance Monday, April 20, 2026 at 08:00am 0 Comments

It’s amazing that people who are professors would have even felt comfortable participating in something like this.

UC San Diego professors face discipline for actions at 2024 anti-Israel encampment

A pair of University of California San Diego professors may be sanctioned for their actions at an anti-Israel encampment two years ago.

According to the East Bay Times, as police moved to clear the encampment in May of 2024, various protesters “got into shoving matches” with officers. Fifty-nine UCSD students and two professors were arrested.

But following “a months-long review” all criminal charges were dropped. The university, however, followed up on its own sanctions.

One of the professors at the encampment, Environmental Physics, Ethnic Studies, and Critical Gender Studies Professor BT Werner, was notified in February he would face “disciplinary administrative proceedings” next month.

On the advice of “their” (Werner apparently uses plural pronouns) attorney, Werner declined to discuss with the Times his involvement at the encampment, but did note he is charged with violating the faculty code of conduct for “participating in an encampment that disturbed university operations.”

Werner (pictured) also referred to their possible discipline — a two-year suspension without pay — as “politically motivated.”

Any discipline is “intended to suppress protected speech not aligned with the senior administration’s political perspectives or the perspectives of their donors and political allies,” Werner said. “And to me, this illustrates what scholars and legal experts call the Palestine exception to free speech.”

The other professor, Lily Hoang of the Literature Department, may be suspended for one quarter without pay, the student newspaper The Guardian reports.

Over the last few weeks, student and faculty demonstrators have protested possible sanctions against the professors at the campus Geisel Library.

On April 2, the Council on American Islamic Relations, which has designated UCSD a “hostile campus,” along with the UCSD Faculty for Justice in Palestine and Students for Justice in Palestine, held a press conference in support of the professors.

A member of the SJP said discipline of the professors “sends a message to faculty and students that they can still be targeted, a message that standing with students can come with consequences.”