BIFI’s Chris Hoofnagle in conversation with BerkeleySide’s Felicia Mello, Ananya Rupanagunta (editor-in-chief, Daily Californian) Benjamin Hermalin (UC Berkeley Provost), and Ussama Makdisi (History).
From YouTube Transcript (uncorrected):
0:03Welcome everyone. I’m Zach Farber, Berkeley’sides editor-inchief. And it is so great to be with you all here
0:10tonight. And it’s always just a real pleasure when we get to get together with our Berkeley Side readers and the
0:15Berkeley community. And I hope some of you will take some time after the program to introduce yourselves to us at
0:21Berkeley and to some of the people um on your left and on your right.
0:26You know, at its core, Berkeley is here to help you understand what’s happening in our city and why it matters. We focus
0:33on reporting that holds people in power accountable, asks hard questions, and reflects the real information needs of
0:40the city’s communities. And I often think of journalists as stewards of a shared reality, which means that, you
0:47know, what you read in our reporting should really be what you see on our streets as you walk around. And at a
0:53time when that shared reality can feel fragile, when trust in institutions, including the press, is being tested,
1:00this work becomes even more important because local news is where trust begins. So I just want to know by a show
1:07of hands, how many of you are already regular readers of Berkeley in this room? Basically everyone.
1:14And how many of you have sent in tips to our email?
1:19A lot of you. That’s great. Would love to get more tips. That’s really where a lot of our best story ideas come from. So, please keep those coming. And how
1:26many of you have supported our work with a donation in the past? Well, that’s that’s also great to see. Um, you know,
1:34our nonprofit newsroom relies on the support of our readers to survive and thrive. And becoming a member is how we
1:40can continue bringing you the stories that matter. Berkeley site is now 17 years old. And in independent local
1:46news, that is ancient. [applause] And you know, while we’re proud of that
1:52history, we’re even more focused on what comes next. So late last year, we launched a new higher education beat,
1:59bringing on board Felicia Melo, [applause] and she’s the first full-time reporter
2:05in Berkeley history who’s tasked mostly with covering UC Berkeley. And so we launched this beat with the support of a
2:11group of generous local donors and the nonprofit organization Open Campus. And
2:18we launched it at a time when higher education is under attack when UC is in a fight for its future. And tonight
2:25we’re here to talk about the state of free speech at UC Berkeley. Cal is a place that’s deeply tied to the
2:32history of the free speech movement and where these questions still reverberate today.
2:37So Felicia is going to be talking with our panelists about how Cal can continue to support free speech and academic freedom at a time of real and growing
2:44challenges and what the university’s track record has been over the past year since Trump took office.
2:51And so Berkeley obviously has a long and history of passionate debate and tonight is part of that tradition and we ask
2:57that everyone engage with respect and civility so we can hold space for a wide range of perspectives and keep the
3:04conversation constructive. We are going to be including questions submitted by the community both in
3:10advance and during tonight’s event. And so that there are some flashc cards um scattered throughout the room. Please
3:15pass them and share them with your neighbors. Um and if you have a question for the panel, fill out one of the cards
3:21and we’re going to be collecting them a few times throughout the evening. Um and if you need a card or a pencil, just
3:26raise your hand and we’ll get one to you. And now it is my pleasure to introduce
3:32tonight’s speakers. Please, please join me in welcoming our moderator, Felicia
3:37Melo, [applause]
3:43Ana Rupanaga, editor-inchief and president of the Daily California.
3:49[applause] Usama Makasi, professor of history and
3:56chancellor’s chair at UC Berkeley. [applause]
4:02Chris Hoof Nogle, Secretary of the Berkeley Initiative for Freedom of Inquiry and Professor of Law and Residence at UC Berkeley [applause]
4:12and Benjamin Hermlin, executive vice chancellor and provost at Cal. [applause]
4:21Well, hello. It’s great to be here with this fantastic panel. Really appreciate everyone coming out today. Today we’re
4:28going to be talking about free speech and we’ll also be talking about academic freedom. So scholars often make a
4:35distinction between these two ideas. On the one hand, free speech, the protection that the constitution gives
4:41any of us to say what we want with a few limitations without being restrained by
4:46the government including by a public university. And on the other hand, academic freedom,
4:52the right of faculty to freely discuss and research ideas according to the standards of their profession without
4:58interference. And as university administrators often point out, some things that qual qualify
5:05as constitutionally protected speech are not necessarily protected under academic freedom. For example, if a professor
5:12does unethical things like plagiarizing or abusing and bullying their students. So, these concepts are not the same, but
5:18they’re intertwined, and we’ll be talking about both of them tonight. As Zach alluded to earlier, this is not
5:25an abstract discussion. We’re having this discussion at a moment when we’re seven weeks into a war between the US,
5:32Iran, and and Israel that has spread to various parts of the Middle East,
5:37already killed thousands of people, and shaken the world economy. Within the United States, the basic norms of
5:44democracy and rule of law are increasingly under attack. These are all important questions to be discussing at
5:51a university. And at the same time, uh we have a federal government that has
5:56shown interest in applying pressure on universities to comply with its political vision,
6:03whether that’s through lawsuits or uh threats of revocation of funding. So,
6:09it’s an interesting moment. We asked readers to submit questions in advance of this event and one person simply wrote, “How will we survive this current
6:16time?” This is a question that I many of us probably empathize with. So the stakes are high. They’re also high
6:22because of UC Berkeley’s stature as the world’s leading public research university. When the university recently
6:29settled a lawsuit with the Brandeise Center over allegations of campus anti-semitism,
6:35the specifics of the settlement raised some questions about academic freedom, which we’ll probably be discussing
6:40later. And I was interviewing a student about the settlement and the student said, you know, they were critical of
6:46the settlement. They said other universities are going to follow Berkeley’s lead. And I think that’s true on a lot of questions. Regardless of
6:52your view on that particular settlement, it’s clear that that’s true that what happens here has a ripple effect and can
6:59set a precedent for other campuses, not only in the University of California, but really throughout the country. As a
7:06reporter covering campus for the past few months, I’ve heard almost everyone I interviewed express a commitment to free
7:13speech and to academic freedom. And yet it’s clear that there are some deep strategic and tactical differences among
7:20different segments of the community. Um, and so we’ll be talking about those tonight. And we’ll also be talking about
7:25points of commonality. And here’s where I was going to remind you to please be respectful in the discussion, but Zach
7:30already did that, so we’ll skip that part. Um, one last item. Uh, some of the fiercest debates around academic freedom
7:37have come um, in the context of faculty disciplinary cases. Uh we’re lucky to
7:42have Prover Hermalan here with us tonight and the university’s lawyers have advised him that California law
7:48prohibits him from talking about individual disciplinary cases. So you might hear me asking him some questions
7:54about faculty conduct in a much more general way and you may hear him responding in a general way. Um and
8:00that’s why. So without further ado, we’re going to kick it off with our first question. And you know what we had
8:06asked the panelists to do is to give Berkeley a letter grade, UC Berkeley a
8:12letter grade for how well it’s promoted the values of free speech and academic
8:17freedom over the past year and say why. So we’re going to do this in alphabetical order and Provos Termolin,
8:23we’re going to start with you. Okay. Well, thank you for having me. I’m appreciate being here. So um I’m I’m
8:31known for being a hard grader. Um, so I’m going to give us an A minus. Why an
8:37A minus and not an A? Well, we’ve been really working very hard to defend
8:43academic freedom and free speech, but where I think we have failed to do it
8:48perfectly is we have not convinced our constituents that we’re doing it. We
8:53have not provided them that kind of confidence that we are out there protecting free speech and academic
9:00freedom. So, I’ll give us an A minus. succinct. Professor Hoopnogle,
9:05I’d actually give Berkeley an A. I think we have a very good story to tell. Uh there is a deep free speech and academic
9:12culture at the institution, a long history of protecting professors when they have been uh called for discipline.
9:19An example, my colleague John Yu managed to survive uh a lot of controversy. What
9:25I’m worried about um in addition to teaching people the values and convincing people the values is we’re
9:30entering a phase where we might have weaponized complaints, complaints of harassment and um hostile um hostile
9:39environment and so on. And that’s coupled with a complaint mechanism that’s very easy to use. It’s possible
9:45to file anonymous complaints. And our policy covers conduct going back to
9:51infinity. So if you said something wrong 20 years ago in class, you could have a
9:56complaint and under our system from an anonymous anonymous person. Um the other
10:02thing I’m worried about is the heckler’s veto and we’ve had a number of incidents on campus despite uh taking many
10:09precautions. We’ve had situations where people have been shouted down uh by intolerant people and it tends to have a
10:15veillance. It tends to be a certain type of speaker who is shouted down.
10:21Thank you, Professor McDas. Um, well, I mean, every professor should tell you or will tell you or often will
10:27tell you, it depends. Um, and so I would say I’m a liberal grader. I’m a very easy grader typically. So, compared to
10:33UCLA, A. Compared to Colombia, A. But if you are
10:40uh a lecturer who was disciplined for fasting for Gaza to uh protest the Gaza
10:46genocide, well, that’s a very different grade. If you are a student here who is protesting whether a Palestinian
10:52student, a Jewish student, a Christian student, a Muslim student, any student
10:57who’s protesting, for example, what they think of as depravity and they are being
11:03uh intimidated and uh punished or threatened with punishment. Well, that’s a very different grade. Um but again, I
11:10I really appreciate the fact that it really depends on the perspective and where we’re sitting.
11:16Ana. Yeah. I mean, as a student, I don’t like grades at all, but [laughter]
11:23yeah, but if I’d had to give one, I would say maybe a B B B B B B B B B B B
11:29B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B min B minus. I think speaking um especially as someone who’s been in the newsroom [clears throat]
11:35over the last two years, uh and kind of gets to the point that Hermalin was talking about like what do people
11:41actually feel on the ground? like is are students really feeling that their free speech is protected when it’s been
11:48incredibly hard to get people to speak on the record out of fear of retaliation? Um is it the do students feel like their
11:56speech is protected when almost every protest you feel the need to wear masks
12:02because you know you’re you have to hide your identity to speak up for what you believe is right. Yeah.
12:10A lot of nuance in those answers there. Yeah, thank you so much for that. So, a few things I wanted to pick up on. Uh,
12:16Provos Termline, you said that you feel like we haven’t done a good job giving our constituents confidence that we’re
12:22fighting for academic freedom and free speech. Talk a little bit more about that. What are there places over the
12:28last couple years where you feel the university could have done things differently to really make that case?
12:35Well, you know, to Ana’s point about people feeling afraid, I get that. Um we
12:42live in a society where you know independent of anything the university would do and the university isn’t going
12:47to do anything. Uh people uh are worried about being doxed. They’re worrying about what happens in their future
12:54things. And these are things that we as a university really have very limited ability to uh address. Um but we do not
13:02punish people for protesting. We have lots of protests on the campus. Uh we have speakers from a variety of
13:08different perspectives come to the campus. We make it possible for them to speak. Um lots of controversial
13:17uh speech on this campus. People do not get punished for it or disciplined for it. So um you know I think the real
13:25issue is giving people some confidence that they can speak up and not fear
13:31repercussions because there won’t be repercussions from the university for sure.
13:36Yeah. So, and how do we create that confidence? I mean, as a reporter, you know, and this I think came up a little
13:42bit in, you know, Professor McDe’s answer, right? How protected you feel um
13:47and how protected you feel your rights are by the university may depend on where you stand. And you know listening
13:54to people as I’ve been reporting over the past few months it does seem clear that there is some perception among
14:00students and faculty that rules whether it’s about faculty conduct or in some
14:05cases protest are not always being applied evenly in a contentneutral way
14:11and you see this kind of disparity where you know I think listening to administrators there’s an intent right
14:19to apply rules in a contentneutral way and then if you look at sort of the the
14:24major incidents that UC Berkeley has experienced say over the last year where these issues have come to light, they
14:31often have centered around in some way pro Palestinian speech and the question
14:37of whether it is appropriate or or whether there is anti-semitic content in that speech. Um, and so I’m I’m curious,
14:46how do you square that perception with really the expressed desire by the
14:52university to pursue your policies in a way that is contentneutral?
14:58Well, um, I’ll give a slightly pedantic answer if I might. And one of the
15:03problems that we face is that we as the university can’t say, you know, who we’ve applied discipline to, right? So
15:10it’s people it’s a lot of pe you’re seeing only the people who say discipline hasn’t been applied to me
15:18right and so you’re sampling on the essentially the dependent variable and
15:23so you making inferences if one of the first things you learn in statistics class is don’t don’t sample on a
15:28dependent variable they’ll lead you to bad inferences this is the pedantic part sorry I’m a professor um and so I think
15:35it does create a distorted view of what’s going on. Um there are many
15:42discipline cases that you don’t know about because we don’t announce it and the person who’s been disciplined
15:47doesn’t announce it. There’s also many many cases where people have alleged things where nothing happens because
15:53it’s not a violation of policy and that’s in fact the vast majority of what
15:58of the cases on this campus.
16:03Can you talk a little bit I’m going to go actually to you briefly, Professor. want to talk a little bit more about
16:09what you raised about complaints and um I but you know briefly I just wanted to go back to the sort of broader question
16:16of the tenor of how confident people feel speaking out in the university. We
16:22had an a a question from a Berkeley reader that said I was a Cal student between 1965 and 1970. I felt free
16:30speech prevailed. Now people are more careful with their words and self-center self-censor. how did the transition
16:36happen? And so, you know, I want to get more specifically to what you raised about complaints, but first, if you could speak to I know you’ve been on
16:43campus for a couple decades now. And um, you know, how how has what’s your take
16:49on on how people’s confidence to speak freely has evolved in that time? Um, it’s a fair point. I think
16:55technology has a lot to do with it. So, the protests that I engaged in and and when I was in college are not recorded
17:01in any way. Okay. And I And so there is this problem that facial recognition can be applied to photographs of people in
17:07public and then your opinions when you’re 19 become tacked to you late when you apply for a job later in your life.
17:14And I I think this is something young people have to deal with that my generation did not have to deal with.
17:19say that part of running a free inquiry organization at Berkeley has been to support other people and to tell them we
17:26will stand behind you if there is a cancellation attempt or some type of discipline uh um attempt. So part of
17:34part of what it is is acting it out is being confident and acting confident and
17:40knowing that there are a group of people who will protect you. I think at the core it what we’ve been trying to uh
17:47convince people of or the idea that we’ve been trying to convey is that it is counterintuitive even unnatural to
17:54protect the speech of people who disagree with you and this is the standard that we’re trying to live up to
18:00is to protect people even when we disagree with them and when we create that culture I’m hoping that more people
18:06will be confident to speak ana maybe you can speak a little bit
18:12more to what it’s been like for your reporters out there in the field speaking to students and the degree to
18:18which they feel confident talking on the record, speaking freely in their
18:24classes. Yeah. I mean, I’ I’d like to talk about
18:30this in like two cases. Um I think one in in the context of you know the
18:36current administration I think has changed a lot um in the ways in which we’ve had to interact with sources um
18:44you know in the past certain conflict in including Israel Palestine we we would
18:50go in with the expectation that not a lot of people would want to speak um or give public comment and that has since
18:56increased um over the past year. Um and then also you know with the visa
19:03revocations um and just general federal intimidation, anxieties about getting a
19:10job if you know you are on record in public discourse um online. All of that
19:16has just led to um kind of yeah like a difficulty to get people to talk to us on record. We’ve received a lot more
19:22anonymity requests and um things like that. And um I kind of want to go back
19:30actually to the question that you asked uh professor Hermalin about uh like the Palestine um
19:38exception um because I was thinking a lot about that and especially in this context of
19:45one two years um and it’s something that you know as a reporter before before
19:50Trump still had to deal with um because I think generally within in a lot of
19:56like the pro Palestinian um circles there is like this in intimidation to
20:03come up and um you know file complaints um or voice your concerns because of
20:10doxing. Like I remember the first um couple of times in which I reported on
20:15these communities was um before the October 7th um 2023. And it was because
20:23there were these trucks going around campus that had lists of um names of um
20:29pro Palestinian Berkeley law students. Um and then they I was also and I wrote another article about doxing on like
20:36various websites where students names and faces had been published. Um so yeah so generally speaking um and yes you
20:44know the university is not the one who necessarily is um intimidating or
20:49attacking um the speech of these students. But when you are on within the
20:55academic boundaries and are still facing this kind of like um threat to your privacy and intimidation in your
21:02specific community like that restricts your ability to exercise your speech to
21:08give public comment to file complaints in academic settings which I think you
21:14know is an important thing to consider when you talk about what the Palestine exception means.
21:21Yeah, thank you for that. I mean you know I I think sometimes you hear um
21:26that from administrators that one of the factors they take into account and I I think we have actually spoken about this
21:31previously proposal but I’m interested in your take one of the factors driving
21:36which cases get investigated become high-profile um is the complaint process right
21:43inevitably right that the university gets complaints they need to respond and I wonder how the university accounts for
21:50the kind of dynamic ic that Ana is is talking about where people feel may feel intimidated to file complaints to speak
21:58up and when there are also are external factors right that we’ve been discussing affecting the university um when you
22:05have a federal government for example where the justice department is quite interested in investigating potential
22:10cases of anti-semitism or discrimination against white men less interested maybe
22:16in investigating other kinds of discrimination cases so as a university how does the university sort parse all
22:22that information that’s coming at them and and see, okay, are we are these complaints reflective of the dynamic and
22:29actual problem on our campus? Are they more reflective of who feels in this moment empowered and has the resources
22:36to be filing complaints? How do you account for that? That’s a great question and it’s
22:44challenging. um we’re legally obliged to respond to complaints when they come in
22:50and the fact that some people may feel intimidated from making complaints is
22:56something that we would like to combat. Um, uh, Professor McDesci knows that
23:02when we’ve met with, um, the, uh, chancellor’s advisory committee on
23:07Muslim and Palestinian life, um, we try to encourage people who say, “I’ve been
23:12discriminated against,” to file complaints. They may or may not think the process is is fair, and that’s
23:18unfortunate, but we do try to encourage people to apply or or to file complaints
23:24when they have them. But I certainly understand that there are a number of people who do feel intimidated from
23:29doing it and that’s unfortunate because we really do want to see justice done. I’d like to hear from the rest of the
23:36panel. What could the university do to open up that process so that a range of students feel empowered complaining if
23:42they do feel that they experience discrimination? And also to cut across what Professor Hofnogle was raising
23:48earlier, which is this potential for complaints to kind of be weaponized by people who may just feel that they
23:53disagree with something that was said in a classroom. We’ve lowered the transaction costs a
23:59great deal to making complaints um such that I think it’s dangerous.
24:04Now, should people complain about discrimination? Absolutely. because discrimination is where an action has
24:11been taken against an individual based on a protected category so someone doesn’t get hired. But what I’m
24:17referring to is the idea that there could be a hostile environment from speech. I actually not so sure this is
24:24compatible with the first amendment. It’s basically a product of the president Biden administration how they’ve interpreted civil rights law. I
24:32think they’ve interpreted it too broadly such that the complaint mechanisms themselves could become sensorial. And
24:41it’s important to think about that when you look at what we considered a protected category, it’s very broad. It
24:47includes service members, veterans um in all religions. So, a faculty uh member
24:53who makes a comment against conservative Christians or a faculty member who is
24:59particularly anti-military could create a hostile environment or at least hostile environment complaints.
25:09Ana, Professor Maktazi, any comments on how the university could adapt its complaint process?
25:16Um well I mean I think it’s more I mean I would rather go back to the question the Palestine exception if I may because
25:22it is important also to to bear in mind that we’re also talking about a national climate as you alluded to earlier. I
25:28mean after all Mahmud Khalil was a student who was picked up and and they attempted deportation several other
25:33students and so what you notice and what’s happening across this country both in democratic states and there’s a
25:40federal level but then there’s also at the university levels there has been a targeting quite clearly a pattern that
25:46is absolutely undeniable of targeting one side of this the Palestinian those who are advocating for justice those who
25:53are advocating for for equality those who are advocating for a a common future
25:58or or at least some kind of future outside of the current sort of crisis that we’re living in, the oppression of
26:04the Palestinians. And so it’s those people, those students uh not all of whom are Palestinian, but many of whom
26:09are Palestinian. The very first student, Mahmud Khalil, was of course Palestinian, is Palestinian. So I think
26:14it’s important that the question is I keep wondering how does that national climate and the huge pressure that’s
26:19brought to bear upon the university. I don’t envy honestly and this is not in any way I don’t envy being a university
26:25administrator. I can’t answer or speak to the pressures they’re under. But the the truth of the matter is that Berkeley
26:31did turn over 160 names and and you know I understand that other universities did so. Berkeley at least
26:37had the decency to tell us that at least those of us whose names were turned over that our names were turned over but
26:43nevertheless our names were turned over. Um there is of course the the question of the settlement itself. Um and
26:50whatever the legal sort of you know definitions of considering versus adopting an
26:57extraordinarily controversial definition um an anti-Palestinian definition um um
27:03in terms of the examples that are given um the question ultimately is is that going to chill people our people our
27:10students and faculty at Berkeley as much as I believe Ben totally because I think he genuinely and and uh Chris and and
27:18everyone else who cares about free speech and I think everyone here does. I think we all agree on this this
27:23principle that a university should be a place where everyone is entitled to to debate issues freely and can disagree as
27:32academics and as students that’s the point of university otherwise don’t come I mean they shouldn’t write I mean otherwise the university loses a key
27:38component of what it what it’s meant to be and the question is are people going to be intimidated when there’s a for
27:44example the IRA definition that’s being considered whatever that may mean um are people going to be intimidated are
27:50students is going to think, wait, hang on. Is someone going to now accuse me of being an anti-semite if I dare speak up
27:58for justice in Palestine? A faculty is a faculty member going to be potentially
28:03disciplined? I and and I know the answer is going to be from here because we all agree on free speech and academic
28:10freedom, but the the point is the effect is already there. And I want to can I follow up on that a
28:16little bit because I actually I’m interested in hearing more about that effect. So, as you mentioned, you know,
28:21I want to just recap for the audience, right? Last year, the Trump administration asked UC Berkeley to provide documents related to internal
28:28university anti-semitism investigations. And the university did comply with that. They shared unredacted documents that
28:35contain the names of about 160 people who had been mentioned in these investigations, but not necessarily
28:41found to have committed any conduct violation. So, that’s what Professor Mucky is is referring to, and you were
28:46among those 160. And I I was hoping you could actually really just explain a little bit what was the impact on on you
28:53and and on others who you know who who were on that list.
28:58I I can’t speak to others. I can only speak about myself and my own. Obviously, I was surprised. I was
29:03shocked. And uh the the reality is I have no idea what was turned over. Nobody told me what exactly was turned
29:10over in terms of the the specifics. I have no idea if it’s if it’s an accusation or if it’s a complaint.
29:15Whatever it is, I have no idea. So I have no way of responding of course but you can imagine in the current climate
29:21after what happened to Mahmud Khaled and others you know in this country um what people would be feeling I mean it’s just
29:28normal and it doesn’t matter what forget the politics for a second for one second just leave aside the politics leave
29:34aside that we may have very serious differences of opinion about all sorts of issues the idea of being named and
29:40turned over to the to any government quite frankly you know of course it creates a chill and and that is I don’t
29:46think that’s necessarily the intention of the university but that’s certainly the the effect that’s felt and and as
29:53the doxing trucks you know had a different kind of effect as you were saying ana um as you know the the
30:00extraordinary pressure and the defamation uh of our students as I say I always say this including Jewish Muslim
30:08Christian Hindu Buddhist all sorts of students who who are are basically
30:13protesting at a university in the tradition tradition of Berkeley and the tradition of many universities in this
30:18country for what they think of is a better world. Now you can agree, we can disagree, we can argue with our
30:24students, we can do all sorts of things with our students. But above all, we should treat our students as students and think of them as people that we can
30:30engage with and educate and teach and learn from even if we disagree with whatever slogan they may have at on any
30:37issue, but not to treat our students always as suspect, as problems. And I
30:42think that that’s where I think I hope that’s what our our I hope that that’s
30:48where we’re going to get to at one point. [applause]
30:54So, I just want to remind folks that there are cards on your chairs, maybe under your chairs, where you can write
31:00questions and send them. Should they send them to the end of the aisle, Becky? And then just raise your hand and
31:06um one of our team will come pick them up and we’ll be asking those questions throughout the event.
31:13I do want to mention at the time when this occurred, right, UC Berkeley, as you alluded to, uh said that, you know,
31:18the university, University of California as a whole had made that decision um and that the university chose to inform the
31:26faculty and students who were affected um that this had happened. And you know, just hearing Professor McDy, but also
31:33hearing, you know, some of the backlash that occurred from the community and the campus since this happened. Provos
31:39Termlain, is there anything that you think the university maybe could have done differently inside of what we’ve
31:45been discussing, right? This kind of wanting to communicate to the community that the university has their back. Is
31:51there anything that the the university could have done differently or would do differently in a similar situation in the future?
31:58That’s a hard question because it was not the Berkeley campus that made the
32:03decision to turn over the files. This was a decision made by the office of the president. And I’m not going to question
32:09the office of president one way or the other. I don’t want to lose my job. But um
32:16but I think what Chancellor Lions did which was uh noble is he went out of his
32:22way to make sure that those people whose file who were named in these files were notified. Other universities as
32:29professor McDi has said also turned over lots of files and they did not have the decency to tell people. Now to some
32:37extent that backfired because it created the illusion that we were turning over
32:42names uh voluntarily to the government. That was not what was going on. And I
32:48know in other cases we make a really strong effort to try to get at least
32:54names redacted when we have to hand over files because one of the challenges that
33:00we face is you take federal money, you also take a bunch agree to a bunch of
33:05rules and through including cooperating with investigations. And so
33:10we always try we have to cooperate at the same time we try to do it in a way
33:15that protects our people. And so we often ask, can we redact the names? We would like to redact the names. You
33:21don’t need to know the names to know something about the number of complaints and in previous administrations that was
33:28generally granted. Not surprisingly perhaps in this administration that’s been more challenging.
33:35Thank you for that. I want to move to talking a little bit about faculty conduct. Uh, Professor Hoagle, last
33:40December, the university suspended a computer science lecturer who had spoken about the war in Gaza in the classroom,
33:47um, saying he had violated a UC policy against misuse of the classroom for, among other things, political
33:53indoctrination. And, um, in this particular situation,
33:58um, it there were a couple things that were alluded to in the case. Uh one was that um he had spoken to students in a a
34:05short period after class um about the connection the kind of importance of
34:10ethics and technology um and also had made some statements political statements about the war um and sort of
34:18pro Palestinian statements um and then in another case had referred to the fact that he was on hunger strike in support
34:25of Palestine. Professor Hunagle, your organization, the Berkeley Initiative for the Freedom of Inquiry, wrote a
34:31letter to university leadership, expressing some concerns about the decision, and some of those concerns
34:36were later mirrored in some policy recommendations by the academic senate, the body that represents tenured faculty
34:43at the university. Can you explain why faculty were concerned about that suspension and and what’s at stake as
34:50the university grapples with how to handle future cases? [snorts] Happy to. Let me start out by just
34:55saying that academic freedom is different than free speech. And academic freedom, the reason why professors have
35:03academic freedom relates to the credibility of our expertise and the concept that unbridled inquiry is
35:09necessary to find truth. Um doctors and lawyers do not have academic freedom. So
35:16people who are plenty smart, who are professionals do not have this right. It’s a unique right and it’s tied to our
35:22profession and professions have responsibilities. Workplaces have responsibilities. So to be clear, we
35:30actually believe that the lecturer was properly censured and punished for politicizing the classroom. He talked
35:36about a topic that had nothing to do with his class. Um just as I could be
35:42fired if I gave a lecture on physics instead of law. Um we have to stay on
35:47within our topics. we have to stay reasonably within our topics. Um there
35:52was one aspect of the um rationale that we disagreed with but uh um um um but
35:59overall the the rule we follow at Berkeley is whether there’s a substantial intrusion of unrelated
36:05material and there there’s just not a kind of reasonable nexus between the
36:10lecturer’s speech and the subject matter of the course. And he also was kind of
36:16lawyering the situation. He was warned not to do this and then he said, “Well, I’m not going to do it during class. I’m going to do it right after class when as
36:22soon as class is over.” But the whole idea is that professors have power over their students and we have an obligation
36:30not to politicize our classroom. I do not politicize my classroom. I am very careful about it. I just as an example,
36:37when I talk about President Trump, I refer to him as President Trump and I I discuss his legal policies as fairly as
36:44I can. And I think this is something we all ought to be doing instead of kind of
36:49professing our political opinions.
36:55Following up on that and just speaking kind of more generally about academic freedom and and faculty conduct, um the
37:03academic senate has put forward some guidelines for interpreting the UC policy that was at stake here in that
37:09case. and um they’ve they basically have said that it’s really important to
37:15distinguish between political advocacy and indoctrination. Right? So, Professor Ho Nogle, you’ve just talked about how
37:21important it is to avoid that kind of indoctrination in class. And the academic senate actually uh made a
37:28distinction there and they said you know some traditions of scholarly inquiry are shaped by larger political objectives um
37:35such as the liberation or emancipation of oppressed groups and that those actually are can be proper parts of the
37:41classroom depending on what is being taught. Um, and they also wrote that, you know, participating in political
37:47activities outside of the classroom, um, that have an impact on your teaching
37:53should be treated the same as any other activities that have an impact on your teaching. For example, if you’re
37:58providing child care at home or you have other family responsibilities. So there
38:03I the way I read that is they were making sort of a distinction between saying you know to your point professor
38:09hoof naggle um you know yes we should avoid indoctrination in the classroom and we need to have some nuance in the
38:15way that we view these things so that people aren’t punished for simply having political opinions um and so I’m curious
38:21you know just looking at the those sort of distinctions that the academic senate seems to be making provos would you
38:29agree with kind of making that distinction between um political advocacy and indoctrination.
38:36It really depends on the context of the course that you’re teaching. So, and it
38:43also depends a lot on what you’re doing. So, for example, I’m an economist. I
38:48could be teaching a course on international trade. I could be teaching a course that involves lessons about
38:54taxation. And I could talk about what’s wrong with President Trump’s tariffs and
39:00why they’re bad for the economy and the harm that they’re likely to do. That’s okay. And people may be persuaded by my
39:07arguments and that of other economists that this is bad policy. Where I would cross the line is if I
39:15then said, “Ergo, you should vote for the Democrats in the upcoming midterms.”
39:21All right, that would be going too far. That’s the that’s the distinction, one of the distinctions
39:27between academic freedom and um political advocacy or political
39:33indoctrination in the classroom. So that’s an important thing. If I was a
39:39professor of say biology and I start
39:44talking about President Trump’s tariffs, that again would not be okay because
39:50that’s not part of what we normally think about as biology. And so again, that might cause some
39:59consequences for the professor. Go ahead.
40:05Um [clears throat] yeah, I think um I kind of wanted to
40:10just kind of follow up on uh Professor Hnuckle’s comment. Um I think you know
40:17coming speaking again from the student perspective. What I’m more concerned is sort of like the the effects of both and
40:25how people interpreted the cow suspension. Um cuz you know like yes to
40:32some extent um talking about um Israel Palestine in a CS class it’s not a CS
40:42topic but then you know when I was talking to students and the newsroom was talking to students on the ground they
40:47were more so concerned well he the topic of that specific class was the ethics of
40:53technology in which case you could argue that the use of technology in war does
40:59fall underneath the topic of the class. And then students had also argued um again through interviews I’d had with
41:06them and conversations that our news reporters had had with them um that you
41:11know someone participating in hunger strikes or activities outside of the
41:16classroom. And if you look um [clears throat] at you know the if you
41:22if you look at some of the reasonings as to why cow was um you know accused of
41:28political advocacy in the classroom setting it was like he because of his
41:33hunger strike was like weakened and hence that [clears throat] affected his teaching and you know arguments like
41:38that. So that’s a lot of the frustration that students had brought up. Like here you have this professor um who is being
41:45punished um because of his advocacy outside of the classroom um because he
41:51wasn’t a hunger strike outside of the classroom and then you know in in he had
41:59phrased you know Gaza in the context of what he was teaching um in the class. So
42:06I think that was kind of the number one frustration that students had expressed with um the whole parent and cow
42:12situation. And then I think number two, it goes back to this idea of like
42:19intimidation cuz it sends this messaging that when you are specifically
42:24discussing certain topics, certain conflicts and certain politics is when it feels like there is, you know, an
42:32attack on academic freedom and an attack on free speech. And I think that was sort of the sentiment that was
42:37circulating um and the frustrations that were circulating with our student sources in reaction to the parent cow
42:43suspension. Um just wanted to add that to this discussion. And um it also goes
42:51back to why when you had asked that question about like what would I say the
42:56university should change about the complaints process. It’s a difficult question because I think on the student
43:02side it comes down to just a lack of trust in the institutions honestly. Um a
43:07lot of it can go down to just you know they don’t feel like the university can
43:14fairly evaluate their complaints or there there is some kind of ideological
43:19bias and that makes students uncomfortable to come up with complaints. And again, this is less of
43:26something that you know you can do on the administrative [clears throat] level and more so just like the culture
43:32of uh fear and intimidation that students seem to be feeling now.
43:39I want to talk more about how we can cut across that culture of fear. Do you want to cut in first? Yeah. Can I just I’d like to say if I
43:45may um just to to respond a little bit to what Chris um uh said earlier about
43:50the the need to to distinguish between indoctrination and um education. Is that
43:56what you said? Um and sorry say method
44:01meth or no you said indoctrination as opposed to I think education or teaching or whatever. And I and I certainly agree. Of course the professor no
44:07professor uh ideally no person at all anywhere should indoctrinate anyone quite frankly. And I think the
44:13university obviously has to have has to be a space where where we’re educating people. That goes without saying.
44:19However, having said that, I think it’s really important. It’s not so simple to say, well, I I teach about I teach
44:26economics or I teach about President Trump and I’m going to call him President Trump. The question is when, for example, I mean, two things. One is
44:33to remember that we were talking ultimately in the context of a genocide. Now you can agree, you can disagree, but
44:40that’s what the international that’s what the UN has said. That’s what various agencies have said. We’ve seen before our eyes. Everybody has seen
44:46what’s happened in Gaza. It’s not a it’s not a surprise. I mean, it’s a surprise that it happened, but that’s what
44:52students are um respond and what Pyon and others have been talking about and trying to draw attention to. Now, you
44:58can say you could say, well, technically he’s in violation of this this code or this code or whatever, but the point is
45:03let’s not lose sight of actually what’s happening in Gaza. And now in Lebanon,
45:08in the West Bank and other places, there is something that is completely unac should be unacceptable. And now does
45:15that mean again the question I have for Chris or for anyone for Ben or for any of us frankly is who makes a decision
45:21about what is indoctrination and what is proper academic teaching? For example,
45:26if we’re teaching about the Jim Crow South, segregation or if we’re teaching
45:31about the Nazis, for example, do we not have an ethical position that that
45:37there’s something completely wrong about those two things? You know, I’m not just to be clear, I’m not making any direct
45:43comparison one to one. So, nobody then comes and says I’m doing extra wide. I’m just giving you an example of how
45:49because I raised this with with my with my chair at one point and I said, “But how how do you determine if a if a
45:55person has an ethical perspective and believes very powerfully in the idea that everyone is equal and somebody who
46:01doesn’t believe everyone is the I’m not I’m not pointing to anyone here but somebody who doesn’t believe that both of course have a right to be at a
46:08university for sure. But who determines ultimately which administrator on what
46:13basis does somebody determine this is indoctrination and this has crossed the line this hasn’t crossed the line that’s
46:19a huge question and I’m not sure we have a clear answer and the question is how does it get politicized you know based
46:25on everything you said earlier and the questions you asked earlier
46:31there’s so many directions to go from there but I wanted to I want to leave that hanging for a moment and I want to
46:37I want to address kind of what Ana broke brought up about how can we shift the
46:44climate so that students feel empowered to speak out in
46:50light of everything that we’ve just been discussing right including the contribution that professor McDesi just made I just got a question from the
46:57audience that said what if anything can the university do about doxing trucks and similar intimidation that’s a good
47:04question right I was when I was preparing for this panel um I talked to someone who was a faculty member member
47:09who’s in a position to hear a lot about um students concerns about discrimination and and moments where
47:15they feel intimidated from speaking out about the the Middle East. He’s particularly talking about politics in
47:20the Middle East and um anti-semitism and Islamophobia on campus and what he was hearing from students about it. Um and
47:27he said, you know, when you’re talking to Jewish and Muslim students, each community feels that they’re policed the
47:32most, right? Jewish students feel if that they if they express any sort of connection to Israel that they’re going
47:39to be socially ostracized. And he said, you know, Muslim students feel like the whole power structure of the university
47:44is arrayed against them and maybe the country. And and and he said, you know,
47:51both feelings are valid and they’re preventing students from speaking out. and how do we create communities inside
47:59the university where students feel free to express themselves in the midst of everything we’ve been discussing? And so
48:06I’m just curious, you know, to hear from the panel before we jump into more kind of focused audience questions, um what
48:12your take is, right? What what how could we shake things up at the university such that we create more of a climate
48:18where people do feel free to speak?
48:25I’m addressing anyone who wants to answer it. [laughter] That’s a great and it’s a big challenge
48:31and I think it has to do you know the question about what do we do about trucks? Boxing truck drives in the city
48:38streets of Berkeley. That’s free speech. We have no control over it as a state institution. we can offer and we do uh
48:46assistance to the students to help them deal with it but we can’t stop that. Um
48:53and that’s a challenge and you know to go back to what Chris and others have pointed out in this day and age where
49:00everything you do is now permanent on the internet and you can never escape your mistakes. Um
49:08I can see why people are nervous. At the same time, I think maybe we have to do a little bit of
49:16encouraging our students to be braver. Uh I think one of the things that we
49:21don’t do is to say, you know, if you want to have freedom of speech, then you
49:27have to exercise it. If you don’t exercise it, you’re giving away your freedom. And so, we have got to figure
49:34out a way. And I realize it’s tough. And you know, when you’re a young person, it’s easy to feel intimidated. And I’m
49:41not trying to deny the strength of those feelings. We have to encourage people to
49:46speak up and we have to do that ourselves and say what we believe
49:52publicly, recognizing that there could be consequences. Um, and that’s a it’s a
49:58it’s a challenging thing to do. I’m not denying that it’s a hard thing to do, but I think we need to do more of that
50:04on this university. And I think Chris was alluding to that by saying that we have to create an environment where
50:09people do free feel free to speak up and recognize that they have that right and
50:15that’s their power. What we’re trying to do is model um
50:20difficult conversations. We had a conversation at the law school last week with very difficult questions, even
50:25inflammatory questions. Um and I think the way to deal with that is to not feel
50:31harmed. you know, don’t feel harmed and you won’t be harmed. And our speakers um
50:37addressed those concerns without melting down. We do have to develop a culture where we respect other people who have
50:44different opinions. And I think one of the problems with the debate over Israel and Hamas is the totalizing nature of
50:52this conflict where people feel that it is so deeply moral that if you’re
50:58identified with one side, you’re a bad person and that’s it. And we have to erode that that that feeling that people
51:05are so totally terrible if they feel one way um or or another about it. I think
51:10you’re right that you know both um um both um people who support Israel um and
51:16um and others are are um do feel everyone on all sides of this debate
51:21feel censored. That’s very interesting to see. And we’ve we’ve heard a little bit about the Palestine um exception. I
51:29will point out that most of the heckler veto events on campus are actually targeted at Israeli or Jewish speakers.
51:36Um I’ve been witnessed to these things. Um and so that veilance is very strong
51:42and we need to uh get over that culture that you can just shout people down if you disagree with them.
51:52Should I could I respond? Yes. May I respond respectfully? I mean I wouldn’t call it first of all Israel Hamas. I mean, it’s not it’s people are
51:58Palestinian and they support Palestinian rights. It’s not about Hamas, not Hamas. It’s about so Israel and the equivalent
52:05is not Hamas, it’s the Palestinians, if you want, who were Israelis and Palestinians. I think that I think that’s just an important rhetorical
52:12[applause] it’s it’s an important rhetorical point and an important point to remind ourselves that we’re ultimately talking about people on the
52:18ground irrespective of of the debates that we should have at a university about um and and we shouldn’t have uh
52:24people any person whatever the view is at a university I think this is where we I hope we’re in agreement that we should
52:30have a space at a university to to argue the case to make the case and to to to
52:36be able to be strong enough or at least willing to listen the criticism that is the point as I said of a university at least my understanding of a university
52:43but it’s simply it’s simply the case objectively that the vast majority of
52:49doxing the v I I’m president of the Middle East studies association we track all the the the firings of faculty the
52:56firings of lecturers the censorship that’s taking place we track all the title six cases what’s happened to title
53:02six cases I think I’ve shared it with Ben and with others um the the Middle East studies and the associ ation and
53:08the the AUP report on on sort of the and
53:13I have it here on the sort of the the weaponization of these title six invest or the or the the the transformation of
53:20the nature of these title six investigations in the Biden administration and then in the Trump administration and everyone should read
53:26these reports. They’re important because I think it’s really important to emphasize it’s the it’s there’s a there
53:32is a group of students and of a certain profile who have been doxed and faculty
53:37on our campus who have been doxed. There are people who have been defamed publicly. There are people who have
53:43there are the the students who have been arrested and those are all almost overwhelmingly on one side of of of the
53:52of of this of this this debate that we’re having on campus. I think it’s important to recognize that without
53:58without denying the fact that at a university everyone should have a right to uh to be able to to advocate their
54:05case in terms of free speech and in terms of the classroom argue as a professor or as a lecturer the the the
54:11the materials that they that they want to argue as professors and as lecturers. Let’s take it out of that and just talk
54:18about TPUSA for instance. Um, if you’re familiar with the Turning Point USA event, we had this event on campus. Um,
54:26the security apparatus to hold that event and not have it cancelled must
54:31have cost a fortune. The provost might know the number of how much it cost, but
54:36those, you know, people wanted to go to that event. It sold out. I was there. I
54:42went to observe that event. and the hostility levied at me by people by the
54:48protesters who thought I was there for the event. They thought I was there to go see Charlie Kirk’s company. It was palpable. The way people looked at me,
54:55people wearing masks, people, you know, um quite kind of intimidating. And then
55:01when the when the uh people who went to this event walked out, they were greeted with a cheer that went [ __ ] you fascist
55:09over and over and over for an hour. So there is [applause] a deep um there
55:15is a deep a liberalism at the heart of this willingness to cancel people you
55:20disagree with and it’s costing us millions of dollars um and free speech. You know they have the we should be
55:26willing to listen to the other side. I’m glad you brought about brought up turning point because I wanted to ask
55:32about this question of institutional neutrality and this go I think it goes back to the question of you know how do
55:38we make students feel comfortable and and on campus. There were students I think at the time who were calling for
55:45the university to make a more public statement to the students who might have
55:52felt threatened by the presence of that event. Right? that students, you know,
55:57who had who perceived Turning Point as an organization that had engaged in
56:03homophobic rhetoric, misogynist rhetoric, um that felt unsafe by the
56:09fact that the event was happening. I think we’re calling on the administration to to make more of a
56:15public statement distancing itself from the views of Turning Point. And you
56:20know, it really raises the question, right? when is it appropriate for the university, you know, you both were talking earlier about kind of the
56:27university leading on these questions and saying, you know, we should use our freedom of speech, right? We should
56:32speak out based on our values. Um, and then of course, you know, there’s that’s
56:38been a touchy subject over the last couple years. Uh, Chancellor Lions in previous interviews has said, you know, we want to move the university more in
56:45the direction of institutional neutrality. And there have been um you know criticisms from outside the
56:50university of departments who and schools that are perceived as taking stands on political issues. And then on
56:57the other hand you have um you know students in many cases calling for the university to take a moral stand. This
57:02week there’s a a vote on um you know a student kind of advisory vote saying
57:08whether it’s a referendum on whether the university should divest from companies involved in surveillance and weapons
57:15manufacturing. You could say that’s a moment where the students are calling on the university to take a clear stand on
57:20a moral or political issue. Um, so I’d love to hear more from you guys, all of you really, whoever wants to weigh in.
57:26Um, is institutional neutrality, should it be a goal of the university in
57:32this political moment? And and what does that look like? if so
57:40and and ana I actually want to I want to hear from you like what you think students are thinking and feeling about this it’s been a minute
57:47yes I think institutional neutrality is an interesting question because I think
57:52neutrality in general for me is an interesting question right because you also have cuz I’m coming yes from a
57:58student but also as someone who works in a newsroom in which you know the question of neutrality is also like a
58:04big one Um, and you know, I think in general, most students, myself included,
58:13want to engage in discourse and are fine engaging with discourse even with
58:18conservative ideologies or people that they might disagree with and to bring in the TPUSA event. But I think the real
58:25question comes at least with TPUSA was a lot of the protesting and a lot of you
58:32know students felt scared because you know the ideologies that are being discussed at
58:39these events often times hurt specific identities and specific communities. And
58:44so what happens when it’s yeah an ideology that you disagree with but then also an ideology that is saying that you
58:51know you shouldn’t exist right like it’s it’s hard to deal with as an individual and then be like maybe should I take a
58:57neutral stand when this person is saying that I don’t have a right to be here so it’s a difficult question for them to
59:03deal with right and I think what I observed um reporting on the TPUSA and
59:10this like intimidation you with the amount of security presence that was there when you have like uh UCPD and um
59:19other cops and you know they’re holding the battalions and it creates this I think another third factor of
59:26intimidation. It’s not just the protesters and the people at the event. You also have law enforcement and that
59:32creates like another factor of intimidation um and adds to this I think like picture
59:38of violence. So, you know, I think that’s something that’s you have to consider too. Um, and and yeah, so sorry
59:47to go back to your questions about like whether institutions should be neutral in the eyes of students. I don’t believe
59:54that students believe that anymore. I think um increasingly, you know, we’re
1:00:00this is a good time to actually ask this question with the ASU elections. ACC is like our student government. um we’re
1:00:06electing like the next body and there’s like the referendums I think um yeah
1:00:13like I don’t know if students necessarily believe that institutions can be or ever were neutral spaces in
1:00:19the first place um and you know I think
1:00:24a lot of that could be because with you know um federal intimidation um and a
1:00:31lot of universities across the nation changing the names of their like diversity university equity and
1:00:37inclusion offices or deciding not to participate um in you know pride it
1:00:43seems less and less like institutions you know they’re like reacting to the government um they’re you know taking
1:00:52actions that make certain communities feel uncomfortable is that really institutional neutrality too um so yeah
1:01:00you know I think both with the Trump administration Um and with you know frustrations over
1:01:08the global events I don’t think that students feel like institutions are neutral or were ever neutral.
1:01:17[applause] Just a quick followup on that. Professor Hole had talked about having this sense
1:01:24of um you know being shouted down um at the protest um you know based on folks
1:01:29assuming that he was um that he was there to attend the event. What’s your take on how, you know,
1:01:36how students are feeling these days about whether events
1:01:42should be allowed to go on when they deeply disagree on a moral or political
1:01:47basis with with the speaker’s views? Is there a sense that
1:01:52we’re a campus where all these views should be heard? or is there more of a sense that um you know folks want to
1:01:59advocate for deplatforming views with which they might disagree? I know that’s obviously there’s a lot of diversity of
1:02:05views among the student body but but what have you seen in your reporting? Yeah, I don’t I don’t know if I would
1:02:11necessarily set up that dichotomy that way. I don’t think people are like I don’t want to hear
1:02:18um the views I disagree with. I think like I the point I was making earlier it’s it’s not that they don’t want to
1:02:24hear again like views they disagree with it’s like these are people who are
1:02:30saying that you know you shouldn’t exist because of your like sexuality you know
1:02:36it’s not it’s not a view in that sense like I think if if you kind of reduce it down to I disagree with you and hence I
1:02:42don’t want to hear with you that’s not really where students are coming from when they say that when they’re protesting TPUSA events
1:02:49right it feels like a threat to their very existence. We’re going to go ahead and start the
1:02:54audience Q&A now. And I have a few cards. Feel free to uh write more questions on your cards. Raise them in
1:03:00the air so that our team can come and pick them up. Um someone wanted to talk about time, place, and manner
1:03:06regulations. So, two years ago, the University of California tightened up its enforcement of rules governing
1:03:12campus protests. At UC Berkeley, those rules bar protesters from attaching anything to campus structures, including
1:03:19signs and posters, blocking campus entrances and pathways, camping out
1:03:24overnight, and using amplified sound without a permit. And I’m interested in hearing from any of the panelists, what
1:03:31has been the impact on campus protest at Berkeley um since the revamping of those
1:03:36rules? Well, I I’m going to push back a little bit. those rules were already in place
1:03:44and there was a um directive from then President Drake saying to campuses, you
1:03:51know, make sure that you’re enforcing your rules, which we had been. And um
1:03:57other than a rule on masking, which was part of the state law, uh the rules that
1:04:05President Drake was encouraging the campus to make sure they were enforcing were the rules that were already in place here. And
1:04:12um there have been plenty of protests since President Drake uh sent that
1:04:17notice. So people, you know, I think do continue to protest and we have plenty
1:04:24of protests and they go off generally fine. I mean we haven’t had any real
1:04:30issues. So um I’m not sure I quite uh accept the premise of that question. Has
1:04:37there been a shift in the the vigor with which the campus enforces those rules?
1:04:44The rules have been enforced um um pretty much the same as they’ve
1:04:50always been enforced. Um obviously um we have been I think more vigilant on
1:04:58dealing with encampments than uh we were. um in all enforcement is a
1:05:05decision about what’s the greater risk, right? So, if we go in and we try to
1:05:12arrest a bunch of people, that’s usually a bad thing. We’d rather just wait people out if we can. Um we’ve um
1:05:20obviously have to think about what, you know, what that balance is, but we’ve
1:05:25not I don’t think the enforcement has changed. I’d like to hear from the rest of the
1:05:31panelists. Is there a sense that that there’s been a shift or has it been pretty much similar to the way these
1:05:36rules were enforced for those of you who are here under under previous administrations?
1:05:44Um yeah, I think I think I I I agree in the sense that
1:05:50you know I don’t think ne necessarily the existence or enforcement of time,
1:05:56place and manner policies outside of it being just like you know somewhat in reaction to the spring encampments
1:06:03um and uh the protests with that themselves have changed. I do think the
1:06:10perception of time, place, and manner has changed. Like people perceive as if
1:06:15there’s been a greater enforcement of those policies and they perceive um you
1:06:21know that the university is um like restricting their free speech again
1:06:26whether or not that might actually be the case. Um so yes, so I think there is a perception that this time, place and
1:06:34manner has restricted um free speech. I, you know, off the bat can see that um
1:06:40in, you know, people wearing masks a lot more. It, you know, going to protests
1:06:45and it’s been hard to get public comment. Um, and yeah,
1:06:52I mean, yeah, and I I agree with I mean, Ania, speaking from a student perspective, but it’s clear that there’s
1:06:58been mass repression across this country of our students after the national
1:07:03encampments. Um, and I mean, it’s clear. I think there’s no doubt about it and I don’t know I mean again the whe whether
1:07:10you see regions tighten the laws. I mean Ben Ben can speak to these obviously um
1:07:17u but the but the real issue is a sense ultimately of our students um and
1:07:23students across this country who’ve been who’ve been extraordinarily defamed and as you know and not just defamed but
1:07:29when the government goes around picking up people and deporting them on the basis of ideological perspectives that
1:07:35they don’t agree with um I mean that’s why Mesa and the AUP filed suit you know
1:07:41and so there these are really crucial issues. I don’t think we can separate the national context from what’s
1:07:46happening at Berkeley. I think it’s really important to understand that our that our there’s no question there’s
1:07:52been a chilling because you can just see now partly you could argue because students protested they were defamed and
1:07:58um you know and and ultimately people maybe are exhausted or tired. I mean we’ve witnessed the most extraordinary
1:08:05things in our life. I’m speaking for myself now. I’ve witnessed the most extraordinary forms of depravity I never
1:08:10would have imagined witnessing on my phone. The destruction of every university in Gaza, what happened to the
1:08:16children of Gaza, the destruction of hospitals, the destruction of this now in Lebanon where my parents live and my
1:08:21brother lives and my niece lives and my aunts live. I mean, it’s un it’s unbelievable what is happening. And so
1:08:27people are and and the protests are minimal because I think students honestly are they have maybe they have
1:08:33uh a million other things to do but people are also tired and exhausted. these things go in waves. But I think uh
1:08:39it would be um I think in the end we have to also bear in mind that there’s been mass repression. Uh and I’m not
1:08:46talking here about UC Berkeley’s administration specifically necessarily. Uh because I think UCLA for example was
1:08:53was right was much more intense in the crackdown on its students, Colombia, NYU, other places. Um but there’s no
1:09:01question that the climate has changed. There is no question. And I’m I’m not sure that we can go back. I mean, part
1:09:07of what is happening here is we’re we’re in a kind of vice as a result of Title
1:09:12Six. We now have to cure um um hostile environment on campus. And
1:09:19so what this means is the federal civil rights laws have been interpreted such that if someone totally disconnected to
1:09:26the campus shows up, walks onto campus and says something hateful, we are supposed to somehow respond to that. Um,
1:09:33so we are the the campus is no longer in the situation where they can be like the
1:09:39liberal parent who kind of looks the other way and you know only punishes when it really matters. Um, we are now
1:09:46squeezed with this interpretation of title six that requires us to actually
1:09:51address um in some fashion even the hateful speech of total strangers who
1:09:57show up on the on the campus. Provos Termalin, how is the university
1:10:02administration feeling that squeeze? What does it look like from from behind your desk?
1:10:09I don’t really feel that squeeze to be honest. Um, we um
1:10:17want might be the wrong word. We certainly understand the importance of protest and
1:10:23we want to respect people’s rights to protest. Um, keep in mind the reason we
1:10:29have time, place, and manner rules is because there’s free speech. It’s important. At the same time, we also
1:10:36have to be able to conduct the functions of the university. So, for example, I
1:10:41have many strong political opinions. If I wander into Professor McDesi’s class
1:10:47and start screwing my opinions and disrupts his class, that’s not okay, right? That’s that’s something that we
1:10:53wouldn’t uh want to tolerate. Depends what the opinions are.
1:10:59It depends what the topic is, but you know, I would welcome you to my class. [laughter] It might be a crucial part of your
1:11:05lecture, right? I don’t know. But okay, maybe Chris’s class. Okay, Chris looks
1:11:10like he’d be less tolerant of that. Anyway, but my point is that there reasons for these rules because they
1:11:17protect, you know, the function of the university. And so there is this tension
1:11:23in the sense that we want to allow people to express themselves. We want people to be able to be free to express
1:11:29themselves. And I personally and I believe the university wants people to
1:11:34feel confident they can go out and express themselves. But we also have to run the university. And so that’s the
1:11:41balance that we have to strike. I’m hearing in this conversation this sort of layering right of the actions
1:11:48that the university is taking but we’re not taking and then this larger national
1:11:53climate which is affecting everything and is really you know intertwined right with people’s impressions of um how the
1:11:59administration is operating and how the university is operating. Is there a way
1:12:05in the face of kind of creeping authoritarianism more generally in the in the country for the various parts of
1:12:13the campus community to unite in support of free speech and academic freedom on
1:12:20campus? And what what might that look like in a way that has not yet happened?
1:12:29Well, I’ll I’ll start off by saying again what I said earlier. I think people really have to exercise the right
1:12:35of free speech and I think one of the things we see in the community is people
1:12:42trying to do that. So um I’m sure many people in this audience have been to no kings rallies, right? That’s a way of
1:12:49saying something about the current situation and those are the sorts of things that people should do if they’re
1:12:55concerned about um the way the government is acting. They should get out there. They should be public. They
1:13:00should be seen. And we should make sure that our students feel that same empowerment if they’re unhappy with what
1:13:06the government is doing. They should feel in this free country, it’s still a free country despite many things that
1:13:12are happening to get out there and be seen. And I think we have to as
1:13:17professors, as u people who are entrusted with
1:13:23educating the next generation, we have to say that we have to encourage people
1:13:29to be willing to stand up for what they believe. I think it’s also important to seriously
1:13:35engage with the other side and conservative ideas. I think I think one of the reasons why we’ve seen such a
1:13:42bizarre red pilling of Silicon Valley executives, if you think about all the Silicon Valley executives that have kind
1:13:48of gone rightwing in a very coarse way, one way to explain that is that they
1:13:53were actually never exposed to conservative thought and they had no kind of defenses or ability to think
1:14:00through a more um uh variegated and more sensitive way of seeing the world. Um,
1:14:08and you know, for a lot of students, they’re only getting one side at Berkeley. That this is um the
1:14:15ideological diversity is not very um um very uh um varied here. Um and so we
1:14:23might think about um some more diverse hiring ideologically.
1:14:30I think that’s um well I mean I think at Berkeley I certainly have um many
1:14:36colleagues who vehemently disagree uh with my politics with my ethics uh with
1:14:42with what I consider to be an ethical stand. Um and you know I think so I
1:14:47don’t I don’t necessarily agree that Berkeley doesn’t have ideological differences uh on the faculty. Um I
1:14:53think the the question is in terms of figuring I mean when you think about what’s happening at Berkeley think also
1:14:58of international students. It’s very I mean I international students of course who are going to be absolutely ter we
1:15:05haven’t spoken about international students but if you’re an international student here you people are are understandably absolutely chilled and
1:15:12terrified. So I don’t know what the university can do you know or what the university would do. I mean it’s a it’s
1:15:17a really interesting question. would they defend these students in, you know,
1:15:23if they were to be picked [clears throat] up, for example, by ICE, you know, uh because of their ideological viewpoints, because the
1:15:30administration doesn’t like whatever they say. It could be it could be about Palestinian equality and freedom. It
1:15:35could be about any other issue. Is it I mean, that’s a real question. I don’t I’m not a university lawyer, nor
1:15:41am I an administrator, but I don’t know. But I can imagine that being a really important point. But Chris, when you
1:15:46when it cuts to ideological differences, we do have again it’s really important to un underscore we do have. But of
1:15:52course, we should also have the ability to tolerate uh uh differences of that’s the whole
1:15:58point of a university. you know, and I I keep reiterating this point over and over again, but um you know, it’s uh
1:16:05it’s crucial for us to to to be aware and especially be sensitive to our international students and faculty who
1:16:12who feel enormous pressure because even though they have the first amendment applies to them,
1:16:18they are the ones who are being deported. Yeah. And I’d like to add on to that. I think, you know, I keep bringing up the
1:16:24example of like struggling to get people like on record and public comment and
1:16:29that is somewhat, you know, exclusively when it comes to international students.
1:16:35Like obviously a lot of our coverage last year had to do with the effects of of the administration. You were trying
1:16:41to get international students to talk about their experiences and that was really difficult obviously because
1:16:47people were like, “Well, if I talk to you then I’m going to get deported.” Um, but then kind of to go back to this
1:16:54question, like me as a young person, how do I feel like I can be more empowered to exercise my right of free speech? I
1:17:00think there’s it’s a difficult question that I don’t have an answer to because there’s just like for example the last
1:17:07conversation I had with my mom she was like I don’t think you should be doing all this cuz like what if it affects
1:17:12your chance of getting a job like afterwards you know um of like going into the market having expressed your
1:17:21political opinions that are now on the internet and publicly uh available and
1:17:26like your employer and you know it it became this whole other anxieties. So, you know, people are thinking about um
1:17:32what would they’ll do after college? They’re thinking about their international student status here. So,
1:17:38it’s not as easy, I think, as you know, as being brave in the political climate
1:17:43of today. Not that I think that students shouldn’t be brave or whatever. I just think that the question is now more
1:17:49complicated in 2026 than it might have been in the past. Um Yeah.
1:17:58Yeah. Thank you for that. I’m getting a lot of questions about the Brandeise Center settlement, which we
1:18:04didn’t go into in detail yet. Um but in the time that we have um last month the university announced a legal settlement
1:18:10with the Brandeise Center over allegations of anti-semitism in which the university agreed to increasingly
1:18:17emphasize um the definition of anti-semitism put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance
1:18:23Alliance um by posting it on its website and using it among other factors to
1:18:29analyze discrimination cases. Now the university did not say we’re only adopting this definition. They agreed to
1:18:35consider the definition alongside other factors and um they are using it you
1:18:41know they’re agreeing to use it more prominently and um this you know created some concerns among academics um in
1:18:49relation to academic freedom on campus. Professor McDacy, could you explain a
1:18:54bit about why some academics in your field and others were concerned about
1:18:59the university making more prominent use of this definition and what the implications are for potentially for
1:19:05academic freedom? I mean, I encourage everyone to read the
1:19:10settlement and everyone to read the IRA definition and everyone to read the criticisms of the IRA definition to
1:19:16understand what it is that we’re talking about. It’s the um only the university obviously can speak for itself in terms
1:19:21of the IRA the settlement itself. But notice that the definition itself has seven. It’s not the actual working
1:19:27definition itself. It’s the idea that there’s no other, as far as I’m aware, there is no other form of racism,
1:19:35whether it’s anti-black racism, whether it’s anti-Arab racism, whether it’s anti-Latino racism, whether it’s anti-trans racism, whether it’s
1:19:41Islamophobia, whatever the racism is that’s given this kind of definition that the university must consider in
1:19:47this way with these examples with a parallel set of and seven of the 11 examples that are given in the IRA
1:19:53definition are about Israel and and sort of it is essentially a form in effect of
1:19:59of of trying to intimidate people by saying there’s that if you say this or
1:20:04this or this or this or this or if we interpret you as saying these things then you are potentially going to be
1:20:11considered an anti-semite and that has a profound chilling effect. What’s happened is that there should be at a
1:20:17university a debate at at a university should be a debate. There should be a discussion not about anti-semitism as
1:20:23such. Everyone should be against anti-semitism. Everyone I hope is against anti-semitism as everyone should be against all these forms of racism.
1:20:29Honestly, that that’s goes without saying, but the idea of debating Zionism, which is what the IRA
1:20:35definition really comes down to. Uh the IRA the the examples therein those the
1:20:41the debates around Zionism and do you interpret Zionism from a perspective of someone who believes in Zionism or for
1:20:47example a Palestinian who is in Edward S’s famous phrase the victim of Zionism. Zionism from this standpoint. These
1:20:53should be academic debates that scholars should decide and students should debate and people should have a right to
1:20:59discuss and debate and have all these perspectives. It shouldn’t be a legal sort of threat hanging over your head
1:21:06where you don’t know if you’re going to well if I say this am I going to be am I going to suddenly find myself hauled
1:21:12before some kind of body that’s going to judge me a something that I’m obviously not. And
1:21:19that of course and the whole point of of of insisting on this uh on this
1:21:24particular definition with its uh accompanying examples is in fact to to
1:21:30sort of force people into this one kind of understanding.
1:21:36The question from the audience sort of reiterates some of the concerns that you’re raising. Um, you know, it says, “How can the acceptance of the IRA
1:21:42definition of anti-semitism, a concept subject to vigorous scholarly debate, be
1:21:47squared with institutional neutrality?” Professor Merlin, did I see your hand that you wanted to come in? I’m
1:21:53Yeah, I go ahead. So, um, a few things. First of all, uh,
1:22:00consider doesn’t mean we’re adopting it. It means we are considering it as we consider other definitions.
1:22:06Second, this is not new. So, under the Biden administration,
1:22:13the Office for Civil Rights and the Department of Education said that you had to consider the IRA definition as
1:22:20part of your assessment of title six allegations of anti-semitism.
1:22:27So, the Brandeise settlement, I understand why people are concerned, right? But the Brandeise settlement is
1:22:33really just a reaffirmation of the things that the campus was already doing. And um it was a way of getting
1:22:42rid of a lawsuit that was draining in finances.
1:22:49Uh we spent millions of dollars defending it uh before we settled. We
1:22:55would have spent millions more to take it to court. There was always a snowballs chance in hell that it could
1:23:03have led to really bad outcomes because one of the things that arguably the Randai Center was hoping to use this
1:23:10thing for was to really undermine free speech getting all the way up the Supreme Court where the Supreme Court
1:23:16would say, “Oh yeah, Title Six, it does kind of trump free speech.” And that would have been a terrible outcome. So,
1:23:22you know, people can argue about what the university did. You can always argue about what we did, but we got rid of
1:23:28this uh lawsuit and all we had to do was simply say, “Yeah, we’ll continue to do what we’ve been doing.” And um but there
1:23:36are and you know, I understand Professor McGee’s anxieties. If I taught uh what
1:23:42he taught um and he does a great job and and remember that we have supported him,
1:23:48right? Remember Chancellor Lions in the House Committee in Education and Welfare, a very hostile Republican
1:23:55committee. What did he say when they asked about Professor McDesi? He said he is a fine scholar. I believe that.
1:24:01Professor Chancellor Lions believes that. So, we’re going to support Professor McDesci in his teaching
1:24:07because we believe that he is a fine scholar and he’s doing a wonderful job. But I could also understand why he might
1:24:16worry that someone to go back to what uh Chris said, some student might try to
1:24:21make a complaint and kind of weaponize that and create some headaches for him. And so I I get this. I’m sympathetic to
1:24:28his concerns. And you know, I’m not saying one thing or the other about whether the IRA definition is a good or
1:24:35bad definition. I’m just saying I understand his concern. Yeah, we should acknowledge inside this
1:24:40conversation that some people do find that definition helpful for its um acknowledgment of the fact that
1:24:47anti-ionism can sometimes be used as a smokeokc screen for anti-semitism. But there have also been uh broader kind of
1:24:54questions around academic freedom that have been raised inside of the settlement and I just wanted to touch on
1:25:00them briefly and this is probably the last thing we’ll have time for. We had so many questions with from people about this that I do want to make sure we
1:25:06delve into it. Um the academic senate published a statement recently that raised concerns that the settlement
1:25:12impinged on the faculty’s authority to oversee the curriculum and protect academic freedom. So there was a lot as
1:25:19you mentioned Provos Hermalin in that settlement that was not new and then there were some pieces that were new right that some faculty members have
1:25:25raised concerns about and the things that specifically came up um it sounds like from the leadership of the Senate
1:25:31was that um the settlement would give some power to an administrative committee the chancellor’s committee on
1:25:37Jewish life to examine curriculum and make recommendations about it um and
1:25:42that also the university would be sharing information about um cases of
1:25:47potential potential faculty misconduct with an outside entity, the Brandeise Center, as part of the settlement. Um,
1:25:54so the academic senate has asked the university, is my understanding, to involve the faculty in the negotiations
1:26:00uh of future negotiations about this settlement or any others and to refuse to implement those parts of the
1:26:07settlement that I just referenced. How is the university responding to to those concerns?
1:26:14So um we are not going to not enforce the settlement. I mean it would get us
1:26:20in trouble. We we signed a settlement. Um but I think the concerns of the
1:26:26academic senate which I understand and there was an academic senate meeting uh I think a week ago today if I recall
1:26:33correctly where these issues were aired. The um academic freedom has not been
1:26:41affected. I mean the um chancellor’s advisory committee on Jewish life um can
1:26:51is you know supposed to write a report on the impact on you know teaching but
1:26:57anyone can write say things about impact uh of what the curriculum in fact we have um chancellor’s advisory committee
1:27:06on student mental health and one of the things they do a lot of is what is the impact on the students of the various
1:27:12things that are done, you know, grading on a curve, it has an impact on student mental health. So, this is part of what
1:27:20we kind of do already. Um, and there’s no change in the ability of professors
1:27:27to set the curriculum, to decide what they’re going to teach. We’re not going to turn over syllabi or any kinds of
1:27:35teaching evaluations to any committee. Um, so it’s academic freedom is still
1:27:41the same as it was before. And Ana, is this something students are
1:27:47thinking about and following at all? Yeah. Um I think a lot of the concerns that students have um expressed with the
1:27:53settlement um reflect what professor McDia was talking about like this idea
1:27:59that you know um and maybe I it goes back to the point that I was making that
1:28:04yes on the administrative level perhaps you’re saying that yeah we won’t you know impinge on academic freedom we
1:28:11won’t impinge on your ability to discuss um Zionism and anti-sionism but the
1:28:17perception and the fear that it still creates exists, right? Like people still
1:28:22feel now as if the concerns that were expressed, you know, that like yeah, like it it it restricts our ability to
1:28:29talk critically about um Zionism because now you have this perceived, you know,
1:28:37threat. Um so whether that may or may not be the case legally doesn’t mean
1:28:43that it’s not that these concerns don’t exist or aren’t perceived by students.
1:28:48and you know, professors. It seems like that’s really been a theme tonight is, you know, both fears about
1:28:55things that are actually happening at the university and then the perception of things that might happen. And it’s a
1:29:00it’s a challenging climate and I really appreciate everyone being willing to come out here and discuss these issues
1:29:07tonight. Um, I think we’re out of time. Yes. Okay. [laughter] We’re we’re um, you know, I think these
1:29:14conversations can sometimes be challenging about free speech, right? they really require us to um you know
1:29:21sit with some of these really like tensions and and to listen really closely to people who might have views
1:29:27that are quite different than ours. I think the audience has done a fantastic job of that tonight as have our panelists. Um and really appreciate
1:29:34everyone coming out. [applause]