Violent protest at UC Berkeley triggers federal investigation into alleged discrimination

Federal authorities have added UC Berkeley to the growing list of colleges 
across the United States under investigation for alleged discrimination 
since the onset of the divisive Israel-Hamas war.

The investigation was launched March 5 after protesters violently shut 
down an event organized independently by Jewish student groups in 
February. A spokesman for the Education Department declined to comment 
further on the probe.

The federal probe is on top of an investigation by campus police, which 
Chancellor Carol Christ announced March 4. “We intend to gain a complete 
picture of what happened and hold accountable individuals or groups 
responsible for violations of the law and/or our policies,” Christ said.

On Feb. 26, about 200 protesters gathered outside the on-campus Zellerbach 
Playhouse holding up signs that read, “Stop the genocide” and at times 
chanting, “Long live the intifida.” The demonstrators targeted the event 
because the speaker was scheduled to be Ran Bar-Yoshafat, an Israeli 
attorney and former member of the Israeli military.

UC Berkeley police had to evacuate the event when the protest escalated, 
with demonstrators breaking open a door to the building and shattering a 
window.

The day after the protest, UC Berkeley officials issued a statement that 
expressed dismay about the disturbance but also talked about the 
university’s commitment to the 1st Amendment and the principles of free 
expression.

The following week, Christ said that the university police department and 
its anti-harassment office received “reports that two of the Jewish 
students who organized the event, as well as some of the attendees, were 
subjected to overtly antisemitic expression.”

Campus police are investigating these two accusations, which also included 
allegations of battery, as hate crimes, she said. “They are also 
investigating other reports of illegal conduct, including one additional 
allegation of physical battery upon a student. One criminal suspect has 
been identified to date, for trespassing.”

The university is conducting interviews and reviewing video evidence.

It’s also re-evaluating and modifying its security preparations in light 
of the current tensions over “issues that connect to the identities of 
many people in our campus communities,” Christ said.

In her March 4 statement, Christ condemned the protest and said that what 
happened on Feb. 26 was not what university officials had in mind when 
they expressed their support for nonviolent political protest in alignment 
with 1st Amendment rights.

“Nor can we turn a blind eye towards the hatred and stereotyping at the 
heart of all forms of bias and discrimination,” she said. “While hateful 
expression may be protected by the Constitution, we still have a 
responsibility to respond by working to protect and support targeted 
communities and by marshaling the educational resources of the university 
to confront the ignorance at the heart of bias.”

Since Hamas’ brutal surprise attack on Israel, the U.S. Department of 
Education launched civil rights investigations into several California 
campuses, including UCLA, UC San Diego, Stanford, San Diego and Santa 
Monica College. The department has declined to specify the nature of the 
complaints; instead, when it released its initial investigations list last 
November, it said the schools were under investigation for alleged “shared 
ancestry violations” of Title Vl of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That 
landmark act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or 
national origin, including harassment based on a person’s shared ancestry 
or ethnic characteristics.

At the time the department said the investigations were part of 
“aggressive action to address the alarming nationwide rise in reports of 
antisemitism, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and other forms of discrimination 
and harassment.”

UC Berkeley officials are asking anyone with information about the Feb. 26 
incident to contact the campus police department by calling (510) 642-
6760.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-11/uc-berkley-is-being-
investigated-by-the-feds-for-alleged-discrimination