Dear Chancellor Lyons, EVCP Hermalin, and Chair Stacey:
As faculty dedicated to improving the climate for free inquiry at Berkeley, we write to express our concern about the recent discipline of lecturer Peyrin Kao, which raises procedural and substantive questions about academic freedom. We are concerned that at least one of the actions for which Kao was disciplined does not appear to reach the Faculty Code of Conduct standard for misconduct. Additionally, the concept of advocacy appears to be substituted for the prohibited conduct of political indoctrination in Kao’s case. We propose clarifications of policy to limit the impact of this precedent on academic freedom, and request that Kao’s case be reevaluated under the “significant intrusion” standard.
We acknowledge that academic freedom does not grant faculty the right to exploit their positions of authority to promote personal or political agendas unrelated to the course subject matter, and that the university has a duty to prevent such misuse of the classroom. As the AAUP recognizes in its foundational 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, “Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject.”¹
However, the university must take great care in enforcing these policies lest they inhibit candid classroom discussions about controversial material that is related to the subject. Policies that are vague, overbroad, or enforced unpredictably pose a danger of chilling classroom speech. Additionally, enforcement must be viewpoint-neutral: advocacy of popular and unpopular positions must be treated equally by the administration, and the fact that an instructor’s expressed views deeply offend some listeners may never in itself be grounds for discipline, nor may it be an aggravating factor in punishing misconduct.
At the University of California, regulation of classroom speech is governed by Regents Policy 2301 and APM-015, the Faculty Code of Conduct. Regents Policy 2301 broadly expresses the responsibilities of the Regents, including their duty to prevent misuse of the classroom, while APM-015 sets out expectations for faculty and defines classroom misconduct, including a prohibition against “significant intrusion of material unrelated to the course.”² Because Regents Policy 2301 invokes academic freedom as a limiting principle while leaving undefined key terms like “indoctrination” and “misuse of the classroom,” it cannot in practice function as a freestanding disciplinary standard without reference to APM-015.
Peyrin Kao’s case
Kao was disciplined for two actions he took during lectures for his Computer Science 61B course at Berkeley: (1) for giving a speech at an April 26, 2024 lecture, immediately at the end of the scheduled class time, after telling students they were free to leave, advocating for his views regarding the Gaza War and the role of ethics in Computer Science education; and (2) for mentioning during an August 27, 2025 lecture that he was engaging in a hunger strike, and directing students to a link if they wanted to find out why. Kao was previously censured for ending a Fall 2023 lecture early in order to deliver a presentation about the Gaza War. A letter from the Provost explains the administration’s position that both incidents were subject to discipline as violations of Regents Policy 2301.
Without more information about the April 2024 incident, we are uncertain of whether it constituted a significant intrusion into the course, or the degree to which students would reasonably have felt coerced into listening to Kao’s political advocacy. However, in our view, and from our understanding of publicly reported facts, the August 2025 incident likely did not reach the “significant intrusion” standard. First, as the Provost notes, Kao did not give the reason for his hunger strike in class. While students may have been reminded of his hunger strike by observing its physical effects, we disagree with the Provost’s analogy of those visible effects to a t-shirt with a political message. Kao can change clothes before and after class, but he cannot realistically conceal the effects of his hunger strike from students’ eyes. The analogy risks collapsing the distinction between expressive conduct and its unavoidable physical effects, and could in practice make some forms of extramural expression incompatible with teaching.
The Provost’s letter also raises the possibility that the quality of Kao’s lectures suffered, as evidenced by his saying they “might be a little bit wobbly and poor quality.” However, his self-deprecating remark does not establish that his teaching actually suffered, absent further evidence.
While Kao’s previous censure is important context for understanding his punishment, the Provost’s ruling that the August 2025 incident was a punishable infraction nevertheless risks establishing a precedent that the university regards an instructor’s passing mention of their extramural political speech as grounds for discipline. In our view, interpreting Regents Policy 2301 so expansively would be inconsistent with the way the policy is enforced regarding less controversial political issues, and would contradict most Berkeley faculty members’ understanding of what they can and cannot say in class.
Recommendations to Protect Academic Freedom and Clarify Policy
We suggest several changes to policy that we believe would limit the danger of this case chilling speech on campus more broadly:
- Making Students Safe for Ideas: Kao’s case may have been motivated by student complaints that his political views created a hostile environment in the classroom. Students may indeed be made uncomfortable by many ideas, but students’ reaction to ideas expressed by an instructor is not a viewpoint-neutral consideration and cannot justify disciplinary action, nor can it be treated as an aggravating factor in punishing misconduct. As the Chancellor recently quoted Clark Kerr, “The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas.” Exposure to contested viewpoints is a feature of higher education, and students retain agency in how they interpret, evaluate, and respond to such ideas. Campus leaders must be skeptical of claims of emotional injury from ideas or from the mere political identity of a faculty member, lest such complaints become an instrument to veto speech through disciplinary procedures.
- Transparency: Faculty are introduced to the Code of Conduct, but we suspect most do not know about Regents Policy 2301. Faculty could benefit from a clearer explanation of the kinds of conduct proscribed by 2301, because the policy is somewhat vague, and the word “politics” is open to a wide range of interpretations. Further, we note that 2301’s prohibition is not of advocacy per se, but rather of political indoctrination. We recommend that the Senate Academic Freedom Committee draft a memo specifying principles for good faith guidelines that help faculty understand misuse of the classroom.
- Preserve the instructor intent requirement: We appreciate the Provost’s decision to interpret Regents Policy 2301 to require that the administration establish two findings: that the “meaning of the [instructor’s] action is known to the students and [that] the instructor’s intent is to advocate.” The requirement of a subjective intent of the instructor to violate the policy is an important guardrail for academic freedom.
- Apply APM-015: The Provost’s findings do not mention the significant intrusion standard in APM-015. As a Lecturer, Kao is a member of the faculty and also governed by the UC-AFT contract, which mirrors APM-015. The Faculty Code of Conduct sets useful guardrails on Regents Policy 2301, and if applied using disciplinary standards for the concept of “unrelated,” would result in clearer guidance and analysis. We respectfully request that Kao’s conduct be reevaluated under the significant intrusion standard. Kao’s outcome may ultimately be the same; but as a matter of precedence, reevaluation is important for properly scoping the freedoms of faculty more broadly.
We recognize the nuance required in enforcing university policy while respecting academic and political freedom, and would welcome the opportunity to work with the administration on approaches that strike an appropriate balance.
Respectfully submitted,
Berkeley Initiative for Free Inquiry, Executive Committee
Footnotes:
¹ AAUP, 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. In a clarifying commentary, AAUP wrote, “The intent of this statement is not to discourage what is ‘controversial.’ Controversy is at the heart of the free academic inquiry which the entire statement is designed to foster. The passage serves to underscore the need for teachers to avoid persistently intruding material which has no relation to their subject.”
² Kao’s employment is governed by the UC-AFT agreement, Article 3 of which mirrors the APM-015 standard.