Peyrin Kao, a University of California, Berkeley, computer science lecturer, was suspended from teaching for a semester after UC Berkeley decreed that Kao’s criticism of Israel had violated campus bans on “political advocacy” in class. There are two significant problems with this action: Kao didn’t engage in advocacy in his class, and Berkeley’s rules don’t restrict political advocacy.
The suspension of Kao reflects two alarming possibilities: Either Kao is being targeted for his criticism of Israel and there is selective persecution of faculty for leftist political beliefs, or Kao’s suspension shows a new, broader ban on all political speech in the classroom.
The fact that this repression is happening at UC Berkeley—a top university in a blue state legendary for the Free Speech Movement and liberal politics—indicates how widespread censorship is across the country today.
As Kao noted, “The university loves to talk about how they are ‘the free speech university,’ ‘the home of the free speech movement’ … but when it comes to Palestine: ‘Sorry, we’re drawing the line, your free speech does not apply.’”
In October, UC Berkeley executive vice chancellor and provost Benjamin Hermalin wrote a letter determining that Kao was guilty of violating Regents Policy 2301 in two incidents.
In 2023, Kao, after dismissing class, spoke for four minutes about ethics and technology, and expressed criticism of the Israeli government. In 2024, Kao informed students that he was on a hunger strike (without explaining why).
It’s shocking that such trivial examples of advocacy could ever justify such a severe punishment. In the first case, Hermalin makes a ridiculous argument that what happens after a class is over is in fact part of the class.
He writes, “Nothing in Regents Policy 2301 can be read to indicate it doesn’t apply when a course goes into ‘overtime.’” While it’s true that the rules about behavior during classes apply when instructors extend a class beyond the normal time (“overtime”), those limits end when the class is over. The Provost even quotes Kao’s words: “It is 2pm so class is officially over.” Once Kao says that, there is no overtime. There is only after-class time, and that time is not regulated by the Policy 2301 for course content. Of course, Kao’s brief comments on ethics in technology should be fully protected during a computer science class, but the fact that they happened outside of class means they cannot be regulated by these rules about classroom speech.
The second alleged violation is even more ridiculous. Kao is accused of breaking the rules by uttering 20 words: “I’m currently undergoing a starvation diet for a cause that I believe in. If that sounds interesting, there’s a link.”
The provost concluded, “I find Mr. Kao to have misused the classroom for the purpose of political advocacy, an action that constitutes a violation of Regents Policy 2301.”
No, he didn’t, and no, it isn’t. Telling students that you’re on a starvation diet isn’t “political advocacy”; if Kao was ill or dieting for health reasons, he would be fully entitled to warn students of this fact in case it affected him, and nothing about these words is “political advocacy.” The same logic applies to a medical condition induced for political reasons.
But the provost is also wrong on a much deeper level: There is no prohibition on “political advocacy” in Policy 2301. The word “advocacy” never appears in Policy 2301. Yet the provost proceeds to wonder “whether the instructor’s intent is to advocate” and frequently quotes his interviews rather than focusing on what he said in class and what Policy 2301 says. Political advocacy in the classroom is fundamentally protected by academic freedom.
Astonishingly, the provost even asked, “To what extent is a hunger strike an in-class advocacy activity precluded by Regents Policy 2301?” In what bizarro world could a hunger strike ever be deemed “in-class advocacy”? Refusing to eat during class is not “advocacy” at all. The suggestion that Regents Policy 2301 could be interpreted to require teachers to eat outside the classroom is insane.
The provost noted, “His actions are no different from those of an instructor who repeatedly wore a t-shirt when teaching that had on it a very visible political symbol or a picture of a political candidate.” Wait, does the provost actually think that professors are banned from wearing T-shirts with symbols on them? Will a professor with a peace symbol T-shirt be hauled before the provost for dress code violations? Wait until the provost finds out that some professors wear crosses while teaching—I’m sure that will be quickly prohibited by any fair-minded ban on advocacy.
Perhaps UC Berkeley professors need to start wearing T-shirts with the First Amendment on them to remind the provost why we must not allow political commissars to dictate what teachers wear, say or think.
Zach Greenberg of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression argued, “If you’re going on tangents during class or expressing a political advocacy to students during class as a professor, you’re on company time.” But the whole concept of academic freedom is a rejection of “company time.” Academic freedom in the classroom means that the instructor, not the company, decides what is taught. The classroom is “professional time” where instructors must meet professional standards. But professional standards allow for wide leeway to go on tangents, discuss broader issues and even chat with students about nonprofessional topics. If there is a professor who has never uttered any words in any class unrelated to the course topic, I would love to meet that weirdo.
If a professor is wasting half of every class on a tangent unrelated to the course, then that professor should be disciplined. But the reason for the discipline must be politically neutral and disconnected from any viewpoint discrimination. A professor who expresses political views in class is no different from a professor who expresses views about the football team or a professor who discusses the weather (in a class unrelated to it). All of them are engaging in speech not germane to the class.
But no one can seriously argue that a four-minute statement after class about ethics in technology or a 20-word comment about being on a hunger strike could possibly describe an instructor who is failing to teach the content of the class by going on constant tangents.
The fact that Kao’s words were repeatedly described as “political” is not evidence of Kao’s guilt, but proof of the administration’s guilt. By targeting Kao purely for his political speech, and applying standards that would never be used for similar noncontroversial speech, the Berkeley administration is confessing to its violation of the First Amendment and standards of academic freedom that protect faculty from retaliation for their views.
Policy 2301 is a terrible policy, enacted in 1970 by the regents to suppress free speech, and it violates standards of academic freedom and the First Amendment by targeting “political indoctrination” (rather than all “indoctrination”) and therefore engages in viewpoint discrimination against disfavored political views.
But even Policy 2301 does not allow the kind of repression demanded by the provost, which is why he doesn’t quote any of its specific provisions in claiming Kao’s alleged violation of it.
The provost repeatedly accuses Kao of being “at odds with the spirit of Regents Policy 2301” but fails to quote anything in the policy he actually violated. Suspensions cannot be justified by “spirits”; they can only be legitimate if there is a clear violation of the rule.
The provost’s report is so grossly incompetent—fabricating clauses about “advocacy” that don’t exist in a policy he apparently hasn’t read—that it shows how arbitrary this act of political retaliation was.
Writing that the punishment was “up to you,” the provost gave his subordinates an implicit order to suspend Kao with only one other option: “I would have no objection if you wished to impose a more severe disciplinary action than the one I proposed.” Obviously, he would object to anything less than a suspension, and the resulting suspension is not surprising to anyone. It is highly unprofessional for a top administrator to personally intervene in a discipline case in order to manipulate the outcome and decree what punishment must be given.
The repressive administrative overreaction at Berkeley is precisely why we must give enormous freedom to instructors to do things that we think are wrong. Unless you protect the right of faculty to say dumb and inappropriate things in their classes, people driven mad by the possession of administrative power will seek to fire professors for what they say and do outside of class.
We should want professors who feel free to express their values and their ideas openly, even when it offends some people. We should reject a world where every professor must fear saying a disapproved word in a classroom where every utterance is monitored for wrongthink.
I don’t agree with Kao’s goals of campus divestment from Israel. I don’t agree with Kao’s tactics of engaging in a hunger strike. And I don’t agree with Kao’s methods of discussing his views in or after his classes.
But Kao did not violate any university rules, and it is fundamentally unjust to suspend him for purely political reasons. People are free to criticize him for his ideas, but not to censor him or punish him for expressing them.
UC Berkeley administrators have violated Kao’s academic freedom and the First Amendment in their shameful punishment of him for his free speech, and they deserve condemnation not only for this unjust act against Kao but also for the much larger chilling effect this repression will cause across the University of California.
