The Berkeley Faculty Association applauds Chancellor Christ and the Berkeley Divest Coalition around the Free Palestine Encampment for having concluded their negotiations despite intense external pressure from the UC Regents and the Office of the President.
We believe it models how campus leaders should respond to non-violent student protest with dialogue, not heavy-handed policing. It recognizes that if a university is not a space for discussion, debate and protest the very fabric of our democracy is threatened.
We welcome Chancellor Christ’s recognition that students and faculty have the right to protest in support of the Palestinian people and that doing so should not be conflated with antisemitism.
We commend the agreement for opening an investigation to ensure Berkeley’s Foundation and endowment funds avoid investing in companies that are complicit in, or derive profit from, serious human rights violations.
The Berkeley Divest Coalition and the Palestine Solidarity movement across the University of California have placed on the agenda three issues we consider of the greatest importance to faculty.
- They have exposed an alarming degree of Regental overreach in the policing of protest and negotiations with student protestors that undermines the autonomy of campuses as well as the principle of faculty governance.
- They have highlighted the falsity of the claim to ‘institutional neutrality’ by the Regents and some campus leaders when they support the criminalization of protest against the war in Palestine and continuing investments of UC funds in companies that profit from that war.
- They have reminded us that the Regents – an unelected body who are in no way representative of those who teach, study or work at the University of California – claim responsibility for deciding how the university’s $175bn worth of funds are invested and used. We believe our university should provide a model of financial transparency and that investment decisions be determined by shared governance not by political appointees.