A now-removed description of an upcoming event at UC Berkeley accused Israel of fabricating reports of widespread sexual assault on Oct. 7, 2023, to support its war against Hamas.
The description of the event, a panel organized by the gender and women’s studies department, said it would “look at how Zionism has weaponized feminism, so as to serve Israel’s genocidal intent, by upholding debunked accusations of systematic Hamas mass assault,” according to a screenshot shared with J.
The Feb. 11 event, “Feminist and Queer Solidarities with Palestine,” was first reported in Haaretz, which cited a concerned email from law professor Steven Davidoff Solomon that was leaked to the Israeli newspaper. Solomon wrote in an email to university administrators that the event represented a “disgustingly antisemitic new low, even at Berkeley,” according to Haaretz.
Solomon’s letter also warned that the event could jeopardize university funding and expose foreign students with visas to deportation by the Trump administration for supporting terrorist groups.
On Thursday, Cal administration reviewed whether the event constituted the “use of the classroom for political advocacy,” in violation of school policy, Dan Mogulof, assistant vice chancellor of communications, told J. in an email on Friday.
The review found that Cal had “no legitimate ability to alter or cancel” the panel discussion, Mogulof’s email said. Among the factors cited was the lack of a requirement that students attend the event.
In addition, the description in question was said to be authored by one of the participating panelists and was not intended to represent the event itself.
“That verbiage was an abstract written by a participant in the panel discussion. It was never meant to describe the focus of the event, only the views and perspectives of that panelist,” Mogulof’s email said.
Concerns about the event were shared widely. Steve Elster, a 1987 Cal alumnus who is part of a newly formed group for Jewish graduates concerned about antisemitism on campus, said details circulated on WhatsApp among members of the Cal Jewish Alumni Network, raising alarm.
“I’m a strong supporter of free speech,” Elster said, but the event description “seems to be very one-sided, and discounting of Jewish and Israeli women.”
The topic of sexual assault, including rape and sexual mutilation, during the Oct. 7 terrorist attack has been a flashpoint for controversy over the past 15 months. A bevy of reports, including from the United Nations — which cited “reasonable grounds” to believe rape and gang-rape occurred — have pointed to acts of sexual terror during the assault in southern Israel. Other corroborating reports include a statement from the International Criminal Court; firsthand witnesses, first responders and forensic experts in a documentary created by Sheryl Sandberg; and articles in the New York Times, BBC and other news outlets.
Some anti-Zionists have contended that such claims are either exaggerated or fabricated to bolster Israel’s war effort, pointing to, among other reports, a February article in the Intercept that attacked the credibility of one of the reporters of a New York Times story.
The Feb. 11 event once again thrust UC Berkeley into the center of a debate on antisemitism and the limits of academic freedom. In 2022, several student groups at the law school banned outside speakers who support Zionism, causing an uproar even as law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky defended students’ free speech rights. The U.S. Department of Education opened a civil rights investigation into the university after a February 2024 protest devolved into a riot at a pro-Israel event on campus. Meanwhile a lawsuit alleging “unchecked” antisemitism at Cal continues to play out in federal court. And in November 2024, a course description was removed from the university website that praised authoritarian communist governments, including North Korea’s, and referred to Hamas as a “revolutionary resistance force.”
“The University of California has an extraordinarily strong policy protecting academic freedom,” Mogulof said in his email, and decision-making on professor sanctions rests with the Academic Senate, not with administrators. “Academic freedom can, and often does, protect expression and perspectives others might find odious.”
The online forum with three panelists will be moderated by Paola Bacchetta, a professor and vice chair of research in Cal’s gender and women’s studies department who also serves as co-coordinator of an organization called the Decolonizing Sexualities Network, according to Bacchetta’s biography on the UC Berkeley website.
Bacchetta did not respond to a request for comment.
The now-removed description accuses Zionists of twisting feminist principles and the #MeToo movement for its own purposes. “Some of the more important accomplishments of feminism include the insistence on ‘believing women’ who come forward with accusations of sexual assault,” it read. “Yet these achievements are currently being turned against real feminist concerns in Palestine.”
The updated event page has no description at all, just the names of the participants and attendance details.
Two Jewish students in the comparative literature department raised concern about the event with a professor, according to someone with knowledge of the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The students learned about the panel after their instructor put it on a list of events that students could attend as part of a writing assignment.
The panel discussion “was one of a number of events that students could go to and write about their reaction,” Mogulof told J. in a phone call.