{"id":43525,"date":"2025-08-29T12:16:32","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T19:16:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=43525"},"modified":"2025-08-29T12:16:33","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T19:16:33","slug":"uc-berkeley-designated-hostile-campus-by-nations-largest-muslim-civil-rights-organization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/08\/29\/uc-berkeley-designated-hostile-campus-by-nations-largest-muslim-civil-rights-organization\/","title":{"rendered":"UC Berkeley designated \u2018hostile campus\u2019 by nation\u2019s largest Muslim civil rights organization"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailycal.org\/users\/profile\/Chrissa%20Olson\">Chrissa Olson | Senior Staff<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Aug 27, 2025 (DailyCal.org)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com\/dailycal.org\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/5\/4a\/54a2c073-d9d0-49dd-a66b-38266d1b7aba\/68ae82b020ee1.image.jpg?resize=400%2C258\" alt=\"hostile_Clarissa Arceo_SS.jpg\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The largest Muslim civil rights organization in the United States has declared UC Berkeley a \u201chostile campus\u201d to pro-Palestine advocacy and Muslim students.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailycal.org\/users\/profile\/Clarissa%20Arceo\">Clarissa Arceo | Senior Staff<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The largest Muslim civil rights organization in the United States has declared UC Berkeley a \u201chostile campus\u201d to pro-Palestine advocacy and Muslim students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Representatives from the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR-SFBA, alleged in a press conference Tuesday that campus suppressed Palestinian, Muslim, Arab and Jewish students who speak out in support of Palestine and call for the end of the war on Gaza.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis designation is long overdue, as the UC Berkeley campus has ostracized and demonized Palestinian, Muslim, Jewish, and pro-Palestine students and faculty on the very campus they call the home of the Free Speech Movement,\u201d said Habiba Geweifal, a recent campus graduate, during the press conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Students recounted incidents such as campus administration tearing down a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailycal.org\/news\/campus-tears-down-sukkah-at-sather-gate\/article_47bdd452-8daa-11ef-a029-b7ee0ab6f0f3.html\">sukkah<\/a>&nbsp;erected by Jewish Voice for Peace and a law school professor&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailycal.org\/news\/campus\/professor-quits-course-after-dispute-with-student-over-pro-palestine-clothing\/article_adcf2d34-fefe-11ef-9d64-3f1aaeffb672.html\">confronting<\/a>&nbsp;former Muslim Student Association president Zaid Yousef for wearing a crewneck bearing the British Mandate for Palestine.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to CAIR, the goal of the \u201chostile campus\u201d designation is to drive UC Berkeley to take steps to support free speech, protect protesters, address discrimination, respect religious practices and foster dialogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As part of a larger campaign dubbed the \u201cUnHostile Campus Campaign,\u201d CAIR aims to create campus environments where Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish and other students and faculty can oppose Israel without experiencing retaliation or disciplinary action, according to CAIR-SFBA Civil Rights Managing Attorney Jeffrey Wang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The designation would make UC Berkeley the third UC declared a \u201chostile campus,\u201d after UC Irvine and UCLA. In California, CAIR has also designated Stanford University and Pomona College as \u201chostile\u201d campuses.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In response to the designation, campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof said in a statement, \u201cUC Berkeley has an unwavering commitment to free speech, and to effectively confronting harassment and discrimination of every sort.\u201d He also stated that campus leadership works \u201cclosely\u201d with the Chancellor\u2019s Advisory Committee on Muslim and Palestinian Student Life.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, student speakers felt that campus\u2019 statements and actions were not enough. As an assistant director of the Muslim Student Association, Geweifal said students who wore hijabs confided in her that they were being followed home, and recalled an incident where someone tried to record and dox her for wearing a keffiyeh.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThese attacks have been met with superficial statements of understanding and assurance of our safety from the administration,\u201d Geweifal said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to CAIR\u2019s 2024 Campus Climate Report, which collected 31 responses from Muslim UC Berkeley students, 85% experienced harassment and\/or discrimination, and 71% felt targeted by professors or instructors due to their religious identity.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Discrimination and harassment reports \u201crelated to the Middle East conflict, including at protests or speaker events on campus\u201d comprised 69% of the 1,081 reports unrelated to sexual violence and harassment in the fiscal year 2024, according to the UC Berkeley Office for the Prevention of Discrimination and Harassment\u2019s 2024 Civil Rights Report.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The report does not clarify how many of these reports were related to Islamophobia, antisemitism, or other forms of discrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The report attributes the increase in discrimination instance reports to \u201cthe conflict in the Middle East\u201d and an awareness of a new 2023 anti-discrimination policy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a reason this campus has been so hostile,\u201d Yousef said. \u201cWhen the university sets the stage that says \u2018it is okay to be complicit in genocide\u2019 and amplifies the talking points of Zionist professors and faculty members, they\u2019re also green-lighting, implicitly, the kind of harassment that Muslims and Palestinians have been facing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The largest Muslim civil rights organization in the United States has declared UC Berkeley a \u201chostile campus\u201d to pro-Palestine advocacy and Muslim students. Representatives from the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR-SFBA, alleged in a press conference Tuesday that campus suppressed Palestinian, Muslim,&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/08\/29\/uc-berkeley-designated-hostile-campus-by-nations-largest-muslim-civil-rights-organization\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/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\/43525"}],"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=43525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43526,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43525\/revisions\/43526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}