Add the University of California, Berkeley, to the list of elite universities facing congressional probes over their handling of rising campus antisemitism.
The House Education and the Workforce Committee launched an investigation into the school’s reaction after an anti-Israel mob broke into a building and forced the cancellation of a Jewish speaker.
“We have grave concerns regarding the inadequacy of UC Berkeley’s response to antisemitism on its campus,” said Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Republican, in her Tuesday demand letter. “Several recent incidents have been particularly troubling.”
She spotlighted the Feb. 26 protest by the student group Bears for Palestine that saw about 200 demonstrators surround Zellerbach Playhouse and break through the doors, forcing the university to evacuate the building and cancel a speech by former Israeli Defense Forces member Ran Bar-Yoshafat.
“Anti-Israel activists assaulted Jewish students and shattered glass windows, forcing the cancellation of an Israeli speaker’s lecture,” said Ms. Foxx in her letter to Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ, President Michael Drake and Board of Regents Chairman Richard Leib.
Ms. Christ and Provost Ben Hermalin, in a statement, expressed “great sadness, concern and dismay” after the attack, saying the university had sought to protect the speaker by moving the event’s location and increasing security.
“This university has a long history of commitment to and support for nonviolent political protest that respects the First Amendment rights of others,” they said in a March 4 update. “That is not what occurred on Feb. 26. It was not peaceful civil disobedience. We condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
The university police said they opened a hate-crime investigation into allegations of “overtly antisemitic expression,” including “allegations of physical battery” against two of the Jewish students who organized the event.
Mr. Bar-Yoshafat, an Israeli attorney who was invited by Tikvah: Students for Israel, returned Monday to deliver his speech at the Pauley Ballroom, saying the anti-Israel protesters fall into two camps: “useful idiots” and “antisemitic Jew haters.”
“They did not want me to speak because I might show a different story than the lies they spread, and that scares me; this is why this is a much bigger issue than a Jewish problem or an Israeli problem,” he said at the speech, according to The Daily Californian. “This is the collapse of Western civilization.”
Ms. Foxx cited other incidents. In recent weeks, she said, “anti-Israel students have occupied and blocked UC Berkeley’s landmark Sather Gate, a key entrance to the center of campus, and harassed Jewish passersby.”
She added, “UC Berkeley’s failure to address this activity breaches a specific and longstanding university commitment to keep the gate unobstructed as part of a legal settlement and constitutes a selective dereliction of duty to enforce university rules against harassment.”
Two Jewish students holding Israeli flags were assaulted at rallies. Professor Steven Davidoff Solomon, who is Jewish, received an email on his university account with the subject line “You are a dirty Jew” and the message “if the Holocaust were happening right now, you’d be the first one to be gassed.”
A survey from last October found that 85% of Jewish students surveyed said the Berkeley administration failed to adequately address their safety concerns following the Oct. 7 Hamas slaughter of Israeli civilians in a raid that prompted Israel to declare war.
In addition, 75% said they “do not feel safe expressing their Jewish identity on campus,” and 85.6% said they had been warned by family or friends about the university’s antisemitic reputation.
The Washington Times has reached out to UC Berkeley for comment.
The House probe is the latest to target elite universities over campus antisemitism since the Oct. 7 massacre. The committee is also investigating Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Ms. Foxx gave Berkeley a deadline of April 2 to turn over information related to the issue, including all reports of antisemitic acts since Jan. 1, 2021, and disciplinary procedures.
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik and other school officials are scheduled to testify at an April 17 committee hearing titled “Columbia in Crisis: Columbia University’s Response to Antisemitism.”
The panel’s antisemitism hearings shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Harvard President Claudine Gay and University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned soon after the Dec. 5 meeting at which they testified that whether calling for “genocide of Jews” violated their conduct codes would depend on the context.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.