\n<\/p>\n
Peyrin Kao, a University of California, Berkeley, computer science lecturer, was suspended from teaching for a semester after UC Berkeley decreed that Kao\u2019s criticism of Israel had violated campus bans on \u201cpolitical advocacy\u201d in class. There are two significant problems with this action: Kao didn\u2019t engage in advocacy in his class, and Berkeley\u2019s rules don\u2019t restrict political advocacy.<\/p>\n
The suspension of Kao reflects two alarming possibilities: Either Kao is being targeted for his criticism of Israel and there is selective persecution of faculty for leftist political beliefs, or Kao\u2019s suspension shows a new, broader ban on all political speech in the classroom.<\/p>\n
The fact that this repression is happening at UC Berkeley\u2014a top university in a blue state legendary for the Free Speech Movement and liberal politics\u2014indicates how widespread censorship is across the country today.<\/p>\n
As Kao noted, \u201cThe university loves to talk about how they are \u2018the free speech university,\u2019 \u2018the home of the free speech movement\u2019\u00a0\u2026 but when it comes to Palestine: \u2018Sorry, we\u2019re drawing the line, your free speech does not apply.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
In October, UC Berkeley executive vice chancellor and provost Benjamin Hermalin wrote a letter determining that Kao was guilty of violating Regents Policy 2301 in two incidents.<\/p>\n
In 2023, Kao, after dismissing class, spoke for four minutes about ethics and technology, and expressed criticism of the Israeli government. In 2024, Kao informed students that he was on a hunger strike (without explaining why).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s shocking that such trivial examples of advocacy could ever justify such a severe punishment. In the first case, Hermalin makes a ridiculous argument that what happens after a class is over is in fact part of the class.<\/p>\n
He writes, \u201cNothing in Regents Policy 2301 can be read to indicate it doesn\u2019t apply when a course goes into \u2018overtime.\u2019\u201d While it\u2019s true that the rules about behavior during classes apply when instructors extend a class beyond the normal time (\u201covertime\u201d), those limits end when the class is over. The Provost even quotes Kao\u2019s words: \u201cIt is 2pm so class is officially over.\u201d Once Kao says that, there is no overtime. There is only after-class time, and that time is not regulated by the Policy 2301 for course content. Of course, Kao\u2019s brief comments on ethics in technology should be fully protected during a computer science class, but the fact that they happened outside of class means they cannot be regulated by these rules about classroom speech.<\/p>\n
The second alleged violation is even more ridiculous. Kao is accused of breaking the rules by uttering 20 words: \u201cI\u2019m currently undergoing a starvation diet for a cause that I believe in. If that sounds interesting, there\u2019s a link.\u201d<\/p>\n
The provost concluded, \u201cI find Mr. Kao to have misused the classroom for the purpose of political advocacy, an action that constitutes a violation of Regents Policy 2301.\u201d<\/p>\n
No, he didn\u2019t, and no, it isn\u2019t. Telling students that you\u2019re on a starvation diet isn\u2019t \u201cpolitical advocacy\u201d; if Kao was ill or dieting for health reasons, he would be fully entitled to warn students of this fact in case it affected him, and nothing about these words is \u201cpolitical advocacy.\u201d The same logic applies to a medical condition induced for political reasons.<\/p>\n
But the provost is also wrong on a much deeper level: There is no prohibition on \u201cpolitical advocacy\u201d in Policy 2301. The word \u201cadvocacy\u201d never appears in Policy 2301. Yet the provost proceeds to wonder \u201cwhether the instructor\u2019s intent is to advocate\u201d and frequently quotes his interviews rather than focusing on what he said in class and what Policy 2301 says. Political advocacy in the classroom is fundamentally protected by academic freedom.<\/p>\n
Astonishingly, the provost even asked, \u201cTo what extent is a hunger strike an in-class advocacy activity precluded by Regents Policy 2301?\u201d In what bizarro world could a hunger strike ever be deemed \u201cin-class advocacy\u201d? Refusing to eat during class is not \u201cadvocacy\u201d at all. The suggestion that Regents Policy 2301 could be interpreted to require teachers to eat outside the classroom is insane.<\/p>\n
The provost noted, \u201cHis actions are no different from those of an instructor who repeatedly wore a t-shirt when teaching that had on it a very visible political symbol or a picture of a political candidate.\u201d Wait, does the provost actually think that professors are banned from wearing T-shirts with symbols on them? Will a professor with a peace symbol T-shirt be hauled before the provost for dress code violations? Wait until the provost finds out that some professors wear crosses while teaching\u2014I\u2019m sure that will be quickly prohibited by any fair-minded ban on advocacy.<\/p>\n
Perhaps UC Berkeley professors need to start wearing T-shirts with the First Amendment on them to remind the provost why we must not allow political commissars to dictate what teachers wear, say or think.<\/p>\n
Zach Greenberg of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression argued, \u201cIf you\u2019re going on tangents during class or expressing a political advocacy to students during class as a professor, you\u2019re on company time.\u201d But the whole concept of academic freedom is a rejection of \u201ccompany time.\u201d Academic freedom in the classroom means that the instructor, not the company, decides what is taught. The classroom is \u201cprofessional time\u201d where instructors must meet professional standards. But professional standards allow for wide leeway to go on tangents, discuss broader issues and even chat with students about nonprofessional topics. If there is a professor who has never uttered any words in any class unrelated to the course topic, I would love to meet that weirdo.<\/p>\n
If a professor is wasting half of every class on a tangent unrelated to the course, then that professor should be disciplined. But the reason for the discipline must be politically neutral and disconnected from any viewpoint discrimination. A professor who expresses political views in class is no different from a professor who expresses views about the football team or a professor who discusses the weather (in a class unrelated to it). All of them are engaging in speech not germane to the class.<\/p>\n
But no one can seriously argue that a four-minute statement after class about ethics in technology or a 20-word comment about being on a hunger strike could possibly describe an instructor who is failing to teach the content of the class by going on constant tangents.<\/p>\n
The fact that Kao\u2019s words were repeatedly described as \u201cpolitical\u201d is not evidence of Kao\u2019s guilt, but proof of the administration\u2019s guilt. By targeting Kao purely for his political speech, and applying standards that would never be used for similar noncontroversial speech, the Berkeley administration is confessing to its violation of the First Amendment and standards of academic freedom that protect faculty from retaliation for their views.<\/p>\n
Policy 2301 is a terrible policy, enacted in 1970 by the regents to suppress free speech, and it violates standards of academic freedom and the First Amendment by targeting \u201cpolitical indoctrination\u201d (rather than all \u201cindoctrination\u201d) and therefore engages in viewpoint discrimination against disfavored political views.<\/p>\n
But even Policy 2301 does not allow the kind of repression demanded by the provost, which is why he doesn\u2019t quote any of its specific provisions in claiming Kao\u2019s alleged violation of it.<\/p>\n
The provost repeatedly accuses Kao of being \u201cat odds with the spirit of Regents Policy 2301\u201d but fails to quote anything in the policy he actually violated. Suspensions cannot be justified by \u201cspirits\u201d; they can only be legitimate if there is a clear violation of the rule.<\/p>\n
The provost\u2019s report is so grossly incompetent\u2014fabricating clauses about \u201cadvocacy\u201d that don\u2019t exist in a policy he apparently hasn\u2019t read\u2014that it shows how arbitrary this act of political retaliation was.<\/p>\n
Writing that the punishment was \u201cup to you,\u201d the provost gave his subordinates an implicit order to suspend Kao with only one other option: \u201cI would have no objection if you wished to impose a more severe disciplinary action than the one I proposed.\u201d Obviously, he would object to anything less than a suspension, and the resulting suspension is not surprising to anyone. It is highly unprofessional for a top administrator to personally intervene in a discipline case in order to manipulate the outcome and decree what punishment must be given.<\/p>\n
The repressive administrative overreaction at Berkeley is precisely why we must give enormous freedom to instructors to do things that we think are wrong. Unless you protect the right of faculty to say dumb and inappropriate things in their classes, people driven mad by the possession of administrative power will seek to fire professors for what they say and do outside of class.<\/p>\n
We should want professors who feel free to express their values and their ideas openly, even when it offends some people. We should reject a world where every professor must fear saying a disapproved word in a classroom where every utterance is monitored for wrongthink.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t agree with Kao\u2019s goals of campus divestment from Israel. I don\u2019t agree with Kao\u2019s tactics of engaging in a hunger strike. And I don\u2019t agree with Kao\u2019s methods of discussing his views in or after his classes.<\/p>\n
But Kao did not violate any university rules, and it is fundamentally unjust to suspend him for purely political reasons. People are free to criticize him for his ideas, but not to censor him or punish him for expressing them.<\/p>\n
UC Berkeley administrators have violated Kao\u2019s academic freedom and the First Amendment in their shameful punishment of him for his free speech, and they deserve condemnation not only for this unjust act against Kao but also for the much larger chilling effect this repression will cause across the University of California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Peyrin Kao, a University of California, Berkeley, computer science lecturer, was suspended from teaching for a semester after UC Berkeley decreed that Kao\u2019s criticism of Israel had violated campus bans on \u201cpolitical advocacy\u201d in class. There are two significant problems with this action: Kao didn\u2019t engage in advocacy in his class, and Berkeley\u2019s rules don\u2019t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[13299,2129,20651,20653,20652],"class_list":{"0":"post-37300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-berkeley","9":"tag-defense","10":"tag-instructor","11":"tag-kao","12":"tag-peyrin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}