In Berkeley, a protest at a dean’s home tests the limits of freedom of speech

The dean of Berkeley’s law school is known as a staunch advocate for free speech, but the situation became personal for him when pro-Palestinian students disrupted a celebratory dinner for about 60 students at his home.

Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school, hosted the dinner Tuesday night in the backyard of his home in Oakland, California. The party was to be a community-building event, open to all third-year law students, with no speeches or formal activities.

But a third-year law student and Palestinian activist, Malak Afaneh, stood up during the meeting, held a microphone and began a speech.

As she began to speak, Mr. Chemerinsky, a noted constitutional scholar, shouted, “Please leave our house! You are guests in our house!”

Catherine Fisk, another Berkeley law professor and Mr. Chemerinsky’s wife, can be seen with her arm around Ms. Afaneh as she tries to snatch the microphone and pull the student up a few steps.

Ms. Afaneh and other student protesters described Ms. Fisk’s fight for the microphone as a disproportionate and violent response. Students, they said, had a right to speak at a university meeting.

Mr Chemerinsky said the dinner was paid for by the university. But he said the students, who brought their own microphones and amplifiers, did not have such freedom of expression in a private home, at a dinner with no planned remarks.

In the past, Mr. Chemerinsky has supported the right to speak for pro-Palestinian students, including the right to prevent Zionists from speaking to their groups. But this latest incident shows how the war between Israel and Hamas has intensified and complicated the debate over free speech. As pro-Palestinian students stage sit-ins and disrupt events on campuses across the country, some administrators, under pressure from donors and politicians, have cracked down on unruly behavior, arresting and expelling students.

The moment was especially charged for the University of California, Berkeley, long a hotbed of left-wing activism and home to the 1960s Free Speech movement. As protests there continue over the Middle East conflict, some Jewish students and alumni have criticized university officials, saying the school tolerates activism that veers into anti-Semitic speech.

On Thursday evening, about 15 protesters returned to Mr. Chemerinsky’s home for another student dinner. This time they stayed outside the house for about 90 minutes, Mr. Chemerinsky said.

“They carried signs and had drums,” he wrote in an email message. “They were standing in front of our house singing (some quite offensively) and beating their drums.”

An event in Berkeley in February with an Israeli speaker got cancelled after a crowd of protesters kicked down doors in what the chancellor, Carol Christ, described as “an attack on the fundamental values ​​of the university.” Last month, Rep. Virginia Foxx, chair of the House Education Committee investigating anti-Semitism on campus, sent a letter to university officials demanding documents and information about Berkeley’s response to anti-Semitism.

Mr Chemerinsky said he himself was the subject of an anti-Semitic flyer circulated earlier this week. The flyer showed a cartoon of him with a bloody knife and fork in his hand, with the text: “No dinner with Zionist Chem while Gaza starves.”

“I never thought I would see such a blatant form of anti-Semitism,” he wrote in a statement to the law school after the first protest, “with an image that evokes the hideous anti-Semitic trope of blood libel and that attacks me without any other clearer reason than that I am Jewish.”

The Berkeley chapter of Law Students for Justice in Palestine, where Ms. Afaneh is co-president, did not respond to requests for an interview. But Camilo Pérez-Bustillo, the executive director of the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, said Mr. Chemerinsky was not singled out because he is Jewish.

“He was targeted because he has not taken a public stand on a pressing issue,” Pérez-Bustillo said, “and that is American complicity in the unfolding genocide.”

In the video, Ms. Afaneh said the National Lawyers Guild “has informed us that this is our right under the First Amendment.”

The Chemerinsky dinner on Tuesday fell on the last day of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. As Ms. Afaneh and Professor Fisk both held the microphone, Ms. Afaneh said, “We refuse to break our fast with the blood of the Palestinian people,” and accused the university system of funneling billions of dollars to arms manufacturers.

“I have nothing to do with what the UC does,” Ms. Fisk said. “This is my home.”

Mrs. Fisk threatened to call the police, but did not. After she let go of the microphone, Ms. Afaneh and about 10 other law students left peacefully and the dinner continued, Mr. Chemerinsky said.

“I am deeply saddened that we have students who are so rude as to come to my home, in my backyard, and use this social occasion for their political agenda,” Mr. wrote. Chemerinsky. Through mr. Chemerinsky refused Ms. Fisk to be interviewed.

Many pro-Palestinian supporters argue that now is not the time for decorum as the death toll from Israel’s bombing of Gaza exceeds 30,000, according to Gaza health officials. The protesting students wanted Mr. Chemerinsky, who describes himself as a Zionist, to denounce what they described as an unfolding genocide and call on the university to divest companies that support Israel’s military campaign.

After the dinner row, the Law Students for Justice in Palestine chapter demanded the resignation of Mr. Chemerinsky and Ms. Fisk, and called for a Palestine studies program that focuses on “resistance and the right to return in a colonial context .”

Richard Leib, the chairman of the University of California’s board of trustees, and Mrs. Christ, the chancellor of Berkeley, supported the couple.

“I am shocked and deeply disturbed by what happened last night at Dean Chemerinsky’s home,” Ms. Christ said in a statement Wednesday. “While our support for freedom of expression is unwavering, we cannot condone the use of a social gathering in someone’s private home as a platform for protest.”

Mr. Chemerinsky said he invites first-year law students to a welcome dinner in his backyard to create a sense of community. This dinner – spread over three evenings with about 60 students each – was for third-year students whose traditional welcome dinner was canceled due to Covid, Mr Chemerinsky said.

The dean said he believed in the tradition so much that when he bought a house in 2017, he made sure the backyard was suitable for a large audience.

“I never thought this would be divisive or flashpoint,” he said, adding: “It’s an ugly moment.”