{"id":32904,"date":"2024-04-12T13:48:39","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T20:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=32904"},"modified":"2024-04-12T13:48:40","modified_gmt":"2024-04-12T20:48:40","slug":"disruption-at-uc-berkeley-deans-home-is-latest-campus-flashpoint-over-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/04\/12\/disruption-at-uc-berkeley-deans-home-is-latest-campus-flashpoint-over-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"Disruption at UC Berkeley dean\u2019s home is latest campus flashpoint over Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

POLITICS<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Bob Egelko<\/a> April 10, 2024 (SFChronicle.com)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

UC Berkeley\u2019s 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\u2019 upcoming graduation. But it became a scene of anger when a student arose to denounce the school\u2019s financial support for Israel\u2019s government \u2014 just the latest in a series of confrontations at the university over Israel and Palestine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malak Afaneh, leader of Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine, stood up in the couple\u2019s backyard Tuesday evening to denounce the university\u2019s investments in manufacturers of weapons for Israel and had just spoken the words \u201cas-salamu alaykum<\/em>\u201d \u2014 meaning peace and blessings to you \u2014 when Fisk grabbed her and tried to take away her microphone, according to the Bay Area Palestine Youth Movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An\u00a0Instagram post<\/a>\u00a0by the two student groups said the professor was \u201cviolently assaulting\u201d Afaneh.\u00a0In the video, Fisk attempts to take Afaneh\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d Chemerinsky said in a statement Wednesday<\/a>. \u201cI have spent my career staunchly defending freedom of speech.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201cNo dinner with Zionist Chem while Gaza starves.\u201d \u201cI never thought I would see such blatant antisemitism,\u201d Chemerinsky said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201cnot be disruptive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ said she was \u201cappalled\u201d by the incident and had contacted Chemerinsky to offer her sympathy. \u201cWhile our support for Free Speech is unwavering, we cannot condone using a social occasion at a person\u2019s private residence as a platform for protest,\u201d Christ said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The student groups could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last October, a week after Hamas\u2019 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<\/a> any of his students who agreed with the groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a Zionist organization, filed suit accusing the law school of promoting antisemitism<\/a> by allowing students to exclude pro-Zionist speakers. And last month, the Republican-controlled House Labor and Workforce Committee announced an investigation<\/a> into allegations of antisemitism at UC Berkeley. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chemerinsky, who is Jewish and generally supportive of Israel, has been caught in the middle. He said he disagreed with the student groups\u2019 policies \u2014 which, he noted, would exclude him as a speaker \u2014 but believed they had a right to invite only speakers who agreed with their views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an open letter to the Berkeley law community in October, Chemerinsky said Solomon \u201cwas speaking for himself and not for the institution\u201d in calling on law firms not to hire students because of their views. UC Berkeley, the dean said, \u201cis strongly committed to helping all of our students find employment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In February, Palestinian supporters stretched a banner opposing the \u201cZionist Entity\u201d across Sather Gate, the south entrance of campus, preventing students from walking through the central arch of the gate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March, Ron Hassner, a political science professor and chair of Israel studies at UC Berkeley, held what amounted to a two-week sit-in, eating and sleeping in his office after work<\/a>, and said the school must take \u201csteps to prevent violence between students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reach Bob Egelko: begelko@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @BobEgelko<\/p>\n\n\n\n

April 10, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Bob Egelko<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bob Egelko has been a reporter since June 1970. He spent 30 years with the Associated Press, covering news, politics and occasionally sports in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, and legal affairs in San Francisco from 1984 onward. He worked for the San Francisco Examiner for five months in 2000, then joined The Chronicle in November 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His beat includes state and federal courts in California, the Supreme Court and the State Bar. He has a law degree from McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and is a member of the bar. Coverage has included the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, the appointment of Rose Bird to the state Supreme Court and her removal by the voters, the death penalty in California and the battles over gay rights and same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He can be reached at\u00a0begelko@sfchronicle.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

POLITICS By\u00a0Bob Egelko April 10, 2024 (SFChronicle.com) UC Berkeley\u2019s 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\u2019 upcoming graduation. But it became a scene of anger when a student arose to denounce the… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32904"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32905,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32904\/revisions\/32905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}