One of those facing many questions was California-Berkeley chancellor Rich Lyons (top photo).
“Going forward, for example, there are certain things that we talk to students about all the time. They make demands. Let’s leave ourselves beyond the antisemitism question, as like, do we discuss improving the campus.”
Vanessa Hites (EE-tess) is the legal director for education at Zachor Legal Institute. She shared her reactions with AFN.
"For me it's basically three issues that I can see with his declaration. First, he seems to believe that the antisemitism that stems from campus and university life has to do with geopolitical events.”
She said this is very strange because she said it is one more way to justify antisemitism against students.
"We don't see this with any other protected group. For example, no one is targeting Venezuelans for the actions of Maduro or Persians for the action of the Ayatollah. And even if they were, if that was the reason why, the Jewish students are uniquely scapegoated for a foreign war. It was very hard for him to unequivocally condemn antisemitism and hatred towards Jews in his university."
She said she thinks these hearings are always productive because they bring to light the processes that are going on in universities and the thoughts of their leaders.
"We see for example when he was asked about some faculty members that work at Berkeley and with some problematic tweets and declarations, instead of condemning them, and far from establishing some kind of function, he defines them as ‘fine scholars,’” Hites said.
Hites said she thinks there needs to be a clear separation between protected political speech, which professors and students can have.
But she said these actions, especially coming from faculty, are creating a hostile educational environment and inciting violence inside universities.
SJP founder remains on staff at Cal
She continued, explaining the founder of Students for Justice in Palestine, Hatem Bastian, is in fact, a professor at UC Berkeley.
“What we're seeing now on campus in Berkeley and nationwide is the fruit of Bastian's labors, which he has been allowed to foment hate and discrimination, and has been paid by UC Berkeley."
Hites also cited denial of access to for Jewish students during the campus encampments of 2024.
That is not freedom of expression, she says.
“This is a clear case where you could apply KKK laws. The KKK laws are a federal criminal civil rights statue, which makes it a crime to interfere with educational access based on race, religion, or ethnicity, and this is a clear case of that."
Finally, Lyon’s unwillingness to commit to transparency moving ahead created serious questions.
“The root of the broader issue in higher education in America is when he was asked if he could, could commit to transparency in foreign funding. He said he was not ready to do that, and it makes us wonder why."
Lyons also took questions from House members from California. Kevin Kiley, a Republican represented the state’s third district, wanted to know why protesting students who blocked access to various campus points were not expelled.
“There’s just a lot of context and facts before somebody could say we need to jump to the point where somebody's getting expelled, and we investigate those. We're very rigorous about our investigations,” Lyons replied.
Sophia Witt is an executive vice president with Students Supporting Israel.
She referred to the Ivy League panel that questioned Harvard. She described this as a copy and paste of that session, saying that Lyons was tiptoeing around the real situation on campus.
“It’s almost like trying to hide it in a way, like there's something great about Berkeley even though in despite of the antisemitic incidents that are occurring. It's like saying Berkeley has this horrible situation, but it's OK because we have such great academics.”
Lyons’ repeated protection of the school and its brand were unacceptable, she said.
“I mean that's very evident in when they were asking him about the professor who was propping up October 7th, saying that he would have been one of the ones to storm through the border and take part in the October 7th terror attacks, and he called him a quote unquote ‘fine scholar,’” Witt said.
Unequal treatment at Cal, Witt says
Other minorities at Cal-Berkeley would be treated differently in similar circumstances, she said.
"If they said black students are not allowed to be entering certain buildings here, but we still have a really good program for economics … it doesn’t matter.”
Lyon’s days at Cal-Berkeley are numbered, Witt predicts.
"I would say the same thing that happened with Claudine Gay and the rest of the Ivy League deans are what is going to happen to Rich here. I think if there's any type of accountability that needs to be had, it's here, and I'll wait for him to take accountability for his university and hope that he doesn't lose his job for that fact."
Credit The Associated Press for top photo of California-Berkeley chancellor Rich Lyons.
