Annual Reports | Berkeley Faculty Association

ANNUAL REPORT 2024-2025

Dear Members,

Thank you for your continued support of the Berkeley Faculty Association. Remember, you can keep up to date with all of our activities on our website, especially on the Viewpoints tab where we post our op-eds and statements. Please be in touch with our co-chairs if you would like to be more actively involved in BFA’s new committees and ongoing activities.

This year has been a particularly busy one. In line with our April 2024 letter to the new Chancellor, our work has continued to focus around three priorities: improving working conditions, protecting faculty governance, defending academic freedom and free speech. The erosion of shared governance across UC and at UC Berkeley continued to pose substantial concerns. BFA continued to provide information about UC’s ever-rising health insurance costs for faculty, to raise issues with the Academic Senate and campus, and to give support to faculty affected by campus policies.

We reported in our last annual report that the Palestinian solidarity movement on campuses across the country had ignited a new McCarthyism that has sought to equate criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism, criminalize non-violent protest, and place restrictions on academic freedom and free speech. This trend has, unfortunately, worsened over the past year.

As the Trump Administration took office in January and began instigating its many efforts to undermine the autonomy and academic freedom of US universities, our work intensified rapidly across the Spring semester and into Summer. To help build a strong collective campus faculty response, BFA worked with the Berkeley Academic Senate and other faculty groups who share our commitment to academic freedom. Through its membership in the Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA), BFA also stood in solidarity with the other nine UC campuses. BFA’s numerous actions include:

BFA helped lead an amicus brief in support of AAUP v. Rubio, a lawsuit in the US District Court in Massachusetts opposing the Trump Administration’s ideological deportation policy. This lawsuit has since succeeded at the hearing stage.
During the wave of international student visa revocations, BFA helped with a CUCFA open letter that demanded campuses and UC urgently act to safeguard any students (and faculty) affected by arbitrary visa actions, and to assure access to immigration lawyer advice and financial aid.
Following UCOP’s disclosure of personal faculty data to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under a subpoena in relation to two UC-wide faculty letters, BFA helped with a CUCFA open letter that urged UCOP to refrain from doing so in future.
In response to emerging evidence of Berkeley faculty facing cancellation or suspension of their federal grants for arbitrary and capricious reasons, BFA provided extensive support to those faculty. BFA called on the campus to provide backfilling help and to take legal action against the federal government. BFA also supported the development of a class lawsuit on behalf of Berkeley faculty.
BFA assisted with the writing of a Berkeley Academic Senate resolution, “To Protect Academic and Political Freedom”, that passed in April by an overwhelming margin. In particular, the resolution calls on UC to defend free expression on its campuses, not to voluntarily share personal information about faculty and students with the federal government, and to challenge any illegal demands, including to do with federal research grant cuts.
In response to UCOP’s policy of introducing a new cybersecurity system (called Trellix) across UC, BFA contributed to CUCFA analysis of the surveillance, privacy, and research risks this policy has created for faculty. BFA continues to track implementation of the policy at Berkeley and to express concerns about its impacts.
Finally, BFA also participated in an ongoing complaint by CUCFA and most UC campuses against UC in the California Public Employment Board, which argues UCOP sought to interfere with a range of faculty rights under the HEERA law.

To maintain and expand its capacity to support Berkeley faculty at a time of grave threats to the campus and to US universities generally, the BFA board decided to move to a smaller, more agile decision-making model. The board also began setting up several action committees that include Academic Freedom, Shared Governance, and Local Organizing. BFA members can join those committees and thereby participate in shaping BFA’s work as well as contribute to our campus. We are eager to welcome BFA members to those committees. If you have ideas for what we might do, please contact the co-chairs.

Our membership has grown substantially by over 60 new members as faculty recognize the benefits of collective action. In the coming year, BFA aims to bring new members into our work more effectively.

In February 2025, we were shocked and saddened to hear about our long-time BFA leader Michael Burawoy’s sudden passing. Please see James Vernon’s memorial for details of how much Michael meant to, and contributed to, BFA.

Finally, we would like to thank our excellent staff Eric Hays and Deborah Rosenberg for all their labor this past year. We are sad to report that some of our board members are stepping down this year. We are immensely grateful for the service that Mara Loveman, Cori Haydon, Poulumi Saha, Amanda Goldstein, Ula Taylor, James Vernon, Sai Balakrishnan, Adam Benkato, and Natalia Brizuela have given to BFA. In addition, we gratefully thank Roshanak Kheshti for her service as she steps down as a co-chair.