More than 300 people, including some 60 faculty members and a handful of major donors to UC Berkeley, have signed a letter calling on University of California leadership to reverse concessions made to the pro-Palestinian tent encampment by outgoing Chancellor Carol Christ.
Shared exclusively with J. on Tuesday, the letter urges the University of California Board of Regents, UC President Michael Drake and the incoming Cal chancellor to “repudiate” a series of commitments made by Christ to the UCB Divest Coalition, which spoke on behalf of the university’s tent encampment protest. Christ will retire at the end of June, and Richard Lyons, former dean of the Haas School of Business, is set to replace her.
“In negotiating with UCB Divest and in agreeing to their demands to review the holdings of the endowment, the Chancellor has given legitimacy to this virulently anti-Israel and antisemitic group,” the letter states. Signatures are being collected on separate forms, one for faculty members and one for “affiliates,” which include students, alumni and parents.
The effort marks a distinct new chapter in the saga over the now-dismantled pro-Palestinian encampment on Sproul Plaza at the center of campus that lasted more than three weeks. Berkeley’s encampment was one of scores like it on campuses across the country, following in the footsteps of a tent city erected on Columbia University’s quad in mid-April.
UC Berkeley chose not to dismantle the tent encampment by force as some other universities did, despite its violation of campus policies. The chancellor framed the protest as mostly peaceful, arguing that calling in police would escalate the situation and further disrupt campus activities.
“The deployment of law enforcement can result in unintended, highly damaging consequences,” Christ said in a May 14 letter.
Debate swirled about whether the encampment was a form of nonviolent protest. Christ said that it wasn’t violent, “with a few notable exceptions” — a claim seized upon by the organizers of the letter campaign as a mischaracterization. They pointed to a large banner strung across Sproul Hall decorated with inverted red triangles, a symbol used in Hamas propaganda videos to mark military targets, that proclaimed, “Victory to the resistance!” In addition, two pro-Israel demonstrators were punched in the face at different incidents during the protest, as reported by J. and cited in the letter.
The letter was co-authored by Steven Davidoff Solomon, a Cal law professor. Solomon said he expects the number of signatories to grow in the weeks ahead, with a goal of 1,000.
“Appeasement doesn’t work — nor does appeasement to illiberal forces who have been harassing Jewish students for eight months,” Solomon told J. “The fact of the matter is the chancellor has entered into a settlement that was forced on the university, in violation of our procedures.”
After a series of private meetings with leaders of the encampment, Christ announced in a May 14 letter to the Cal Academic Senate that an agreement with the UCB Divest Coalition had been reached.
“The protest on and around the Savio Steps of Sproul Hall has now ended and the campus will abide by the commitments it has made,” her letter said.
Among those commitments were a promise of a “comprehensive and rigorous examination” of the university’s investments and a review of “all complaints about existing global exchange” programs to ensure they don’t engage in discrimination — a gesture toward the demand that UC Berkeley cut ties with Israel.
“I do not support academic boycotts,” Christ said in her letter.
In a separate May 14 letter addressed to the “Free Palestine Encampment,” Christ acknowledged what she called the “extraordinary death and destruction in Gaza” and the “horrific killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians” during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. She also expressed support for an “immediate and permanent ceasefire.”
She called for the release of hostages held by Hamas in her letter to the Academic Senate, but not in her letter to the encampment.
The new campaign includes major donors to the university.
One of the signatories is Cal alum Stuart Bernstein, a former partner at Goldman Sachs who delivered the commencement speech for undergraduates at the business school in 2009 and was named the Haas school’s business leader of the year in 2014. Bernstein was also a longtime board member of the business school. He and his wife, Marcella Bernstein, are Builders of Berkeley, or leading benefactors, and they helped found an institute for energy and climate at the university.
“Peaceful demonstrations are certainly acceptable, and I’m an advocate for free speech and have been since my early days on campus in the ’80s,” he told J. “But the encampment went beyond free speech and morphed into antisemitism.” He mentioned what he called the “mob attack” on Feb. 26, when anti-Israel protesters broke into Zellerbach Playhouse and disrupted an Israeli military reservist’s speech organized by pro-Israel Jewish students.
“Those are not acceptable acts. Some of them are criminal acts, and others are violations of the school’s own policies and procedures,” Bernstein said.
Another signatory is Douglas Goldman, the grandson of Walter A. Haas Sr., the late president of Levi Strauss & Co. Goldman and his wife, Lisa Goldman, gave $10 million to Cal Athletics in 2012. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the university in 1974, 64 years after his grandfather did the same.
Richard Sandler, a Southern California attorney who leads the influential Jewish nonprofit Milken Family Foundation, also signed the letter. Sandler is listed on the Chancellor’s Council, a select group of fundraisers. Longtime Haas school board member Jerry Weintraub also signed.
UC Berkeley responded to the campaign in a statement from spokesperson Dan Mogulof on Wednesday. Mogulof said Christ’s goals throughout the encampment protest were to protect the physical safety of the campus community, prevent major disruptions to daily life, enable graduations to proceed as normal and “avoid any escalation” of the situation.
Mogulof defended the promises Christ made to the encampment, noting that her offer to review the university’s investment policy did not name Israel but instead focused on certain industries such as weapons manufacturing and surveillance.
“The Chancellor strongly believes that her two commitments in the understanding reached — to facilitate conversations about industry-specific investment policies, and to uphold existing anti-discrimination policies — were more than justified by an outcome that avoided disruption of university operations and avoided the consequences of a massive deployment of law enforcement officers,” he said in the statement
Of the two reported assaults and allegations of antisemitism, Mogulof added that Christ is “well aware” of the incidents. “She does not, however, believe that these reported actions of individuals warranted abandoning efforts to reach understandings that would avoid a potential shutdown of university operations and the perilous consequences of a massive law enforcement deployment.”
By contrast, those signing the new letter characterized the encampment as rife with instances of “verbal, visual, and, on occasion, physical abuse” suffered by Jewish students. They also argued that the UCB Divest Coalition was not a worthy negotiating partner.
“Whatever the merits of Chancellor Christ’s approach,” the letter states, “it has not come without terrible lessons for — and collateral damage to — Jewish, Israeli, and other students who believe in Israel’s right to exist.”