In a victory for free speech – and the right to tell the truth – the University of California, Berkley has withstood Israel-lobby attempts to ban a University event which debunks the false Israeli ‘rape’ claims made against Hamas militants.
9 February 2025
Berkeley Moving Ahead With Event Disputing Oct. 7 Rapes, Citing Academic Freedom –
An investigation by the University of California, Berkeley has found no grounds for canceling a controversial anti-Israel event that drew complaints from Jewish faculty, a spokesman said on Friday.
A description of the event, organized by the university’s Gender and Women’s Studies Department and published on its website, said it would discuss how Zionism “weaponizes” feminism to promote genocide and how the atrocities committed against Israelis on October 7, particularly rapes, were fabricated.
Following complaints from Jewish faculty on Thursday, the description of the event was removed from the website.
“We have been informed by the event organizers that the original event description should have never been posted and it has been removed,” said Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof when asked for comment. “That verbiage was an abstract written by a participant in the panel discussion. It was never meant to describe the focus of the event, only the views and perspectives of that panelist.”
But canceling the event, Mogulof said, would have been a violation of academic freedom.
“The University of California has an extraordinarily strong policy protecting academic freedom,” he said in a written statement. “Until such time that the Academic Senate determines that a faculty member’s work is inconsistent with the university’s academic standards, the university administration cannot interfere with a faculty member’s ability to share their work and their views.
“Academic freedom can, and often does, protect expression and perspectives others might find odious,” he continued. “For that reason, and many others, individual faculty members do not speak for or represent the university. For that reason, we have no legitimate ability to alter or cancel this panel discussion. This is not an event anyone is required to attend, and nor is it a classroom where our policies prohibit political advocacy or indoctrination.”
The event, which is scheduled to be held on February 11 on Zoom, will feature three speakers from outside the university. It is being moderated by Paola Bacchetta, a professor and vice-chair for research, gender and women’s studies at Berkeley. She also serves as director of the Institute for Gender and Sexuality Studies and as co-director of a group called the Decolonizing Sexualities Network.
An abstract of the discussion said it would “look at how Zionism has weaponized feminism, so as to serve Israel’s genocidal intent, by upholding debunked accusations of systematic Hamas mass assault, while ignoring documented reports of Israeli abuses.”
A letter of complaint sent on Thursday to Richard Lyons, chancellor of the university, included a claim that the instructors of a comparative literature class had threatened to lower the grades of students who did not attend the event.
The investigation concluded, said Mogulof, that no such threat had been issued and this was a “misunderstanding.”
“There was never any intention to require students in an unrelated writing course to attend the event, or to lower their grade if they did not,” he wrote. “As per the course’s long-standing written syllabus, the students can choose to attend any of a number of campus events which they would then write about. The instructor plans to send to the students a written affirmation correcting what appears to have been a misunderstanding.”
The letter of complaint was sent by Steven Solomon, a law professor who described the event in his email to the chancellor as “a disgustingly antisemitic new low, even at Berkeley.” A number of professors who were copied onto the email also expressed outrage in follow-up messages to the group.
Mogulof said that upon learning of the event description and claims that policies prohibiting the use of the classroom for political advocacy may have been violated, “the campus administration immediately launched a fact-finding review consistent with our commitment to respond quickly when there are allegations of policy violations.”
