Photo credit: Anita Liu/The Daily Californian
Dear colleagues,
The Berkeley Faculty Association is deeply alarmed at the chilling climate that undermines the academic freedom of instructional faculty, and the free speech rights of the rest of our campus community, to express support for the Palestinian people.
On October 25th, during the walkout organized as part of the demonstrations across the country coordinated by the National Students for Justice in Palestine, which filled Sproul Plaza, Executive Vice Provost Ben Hermalin sent the entire campus an email detailing what he considered the limits on political advocacy for instructors, including canceling or shifting classes. In particular, this email referenced a portion of the faculty code of conduct that describes ‘political indoctrination’ and coerc[ion of] the judgment or conscience of a student.’ A week earlier he, along with Chancellor Christ, had signed an open letter that took its own particular political position on the conflict. Neither has to date signed the statement of solidarity with Palestinians by UC faculty.
Unfortunately this is part of a pattern of intimidation, which reinforces or stymies speech rights differentially across members of our campus community depending upon the position taken. In 2019, Chancellor Christ signed a statement authored by all UC Chancellors claiming that support for the academic boycott of Israel constituted a ‘direct and serious threat’ to academic freedom. In 2021, a departmental statement in support of Palestinian lives resulted in a joint Senate-Administration taskforce report that questioned, and called for constraints on, the ability of departments to engage in what it defined as ‘political action’.
This pattern of ongoing statements by senior campus leadership and other professors across our community has created a climate of fear and intimidation for those wishing to speak out and teach about the highly distressing events unfolding in Gaza. Events that many world leaders and leading human rights scholars and practitioners argue violate the international law of war, and that some equate to the genocide of an entrapped population.
The Berkeley Faculty Association stands in support of the right of any member of the academic community wishing to draw attention to a century of settler colonialism in Palestine/Israel and the loss of Palestinian lives today during the brutal destruction of Gaza, or the plight of the Palestinian people generally.
We also draw attention to the irony that at the very moment when the campus has begun to finally acknowledge its own role in settler colonialism, occupying the unceded land of the Ohlone peoples and still holding over 9000 unrepatriated human remains in Hearst Museum, it seeks to disallow discussion of the annihilation of indigenous peoples elsewhere.
We urge the administration to defend the academic freedom of instructional faculty and the free speech rights of students, not delimit them. For many faculty who teach about colonialism, international law, and human rights, among many other areas, it would be an abrogation of our duties and our educational mission not to discuss and contextualize the current conflict with our students. Professional educators often teach in a manner that is germane to the historical moment, in doing so they seek to create classrooms that nourish diverse and critical perspectives for learning. They can not do this if only some perspectives are allowed to be heard.
Berkeley Faculty Association