UC disruption latest flash point over Gaza
UC Berkeley’s law school dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, and his wife, law professor Catherine Fisk, invited third-year students to their home for a dinner to celebrate the students’ upcoming graduation. But it became a scene of anger when a student arose to denounce the school’s financial support for Israel’s government — just the latest in a series of confrontations at the university over Israel and Palestine.
Malak Afaneh, leader of Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine, stood up in the couple’s backyard Tuesday evening to denounce the university’s investments in manufacturers of weapons for Israel and had just spoken the words “as-salamu alaykum” — meaning peace and blessings to you — when Fisk grabbed her and tried to take away her microphone, according to the Bay Area Palestine Youth Movement.
An Instagram post by the two student groups said the professor was “violently assaulting” Afaneh. In the video, Fisk attempts to take Afaneh’s phone from her hand, then puts her arm around the student while telling her to leave her house. Chemerinsky said he and Fisk told Afaneh to leave, and about 10 of the 60 students left with her.
“I am enormously sad that we have students who are so rude as to come into my home, in my backyard, and use this social occasion for their political agenda,” Chemerinsky said in a statement Wednesday. “I have spent my career staunchly defending freedom of speech.”
He said posters had appeared on law school bulletin boards and social media last week showing a caricature of his face, with hands holding a bloody knife and fork, captioned “No dinner with Zionist Chem while Gaza starves.” “I never thought I would see such blatant antisemitism,” Chemerinsky said.
The dean said student government leaders had told him to expect protests at the dinners, but he and Fisk decided to host them anyway, assuming any protests would “not be disruptive.”
UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ said she was “appalled” by the incident and had contacted Chemerinsky
to offer her sympathy. “While our support for Free Speech is unwavering, we cannot condone using a social occasion at a person’s private residence as a platform for protest,” Christ said in a statement.
The student groups could not be reached for comment.
The issue surfaced at the university in 2022 when a number of student organizations, led by Law Students for Justice in Palestine, announced that they would not invite speakers who supported Zionism, which defines the land of Israel as a Jewish state.
Last October, a week after Hamas’ attack on Israel that began the current war, Berkeley law professor Steven Davidoff Solomon wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal accusing the student groups of antisemitism and urging law firms not to hire any of his students who agreed with the groups.
In November, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a
Zionist organization, filed suit accusing the law school of promoting antisemitism by allowing students to exclude pro-Zionist speakers. And last month, the Republican-controlled House Labor and Workforce Committee announced an investigation into allegations of antisemitism at UC Berkeley.
Chemerinsky, who is Jewish and generally supportive of Israel, has been caught in the middle. He said he disagreed with the student groups’ policies — which, he noted, would exclude him as a speaker — but believed they had a right to invite only speakers who agreed with their views.
In an open letter to the Berkeley law community in October, Chemerinsky said Solomon “was speaking for himself and not for the institution” in calling on law firms not to hire students because of their views. UC Berkeley, the dean said, “is strongly committed to helping all of our students find employment.”
In February, Palestinian supporters stretched a banner opposing the “Zionist Entity” across Sather Gate, the south entrance of campus, preventing students from walking through the central arch of the gate.
Later that month, protests by hundreds of students prevented a speech by a right-wing Israeli lawyer, Ran-Bar Yoshafat, though he was able to speak at the campus in March. A female student who tried to shut the door on protesters at Yoshafat’s first scheduled speech, while she was wearing a Star of David necklace, said some of them put their hands on her neck and tried to choke her.
In March, Ron Hassner, a political science professor and chair of Israel studies at UC Berkeley, held what amounted to a two-week sitin, eating and sleeping in his office after work, and said the school must take “steps to prevent violence between students.”