University of California could ban political speeches on some web pages

The Israeli bombing of Gaza is “genocidal,” the newspaper’s homepage said Department of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Such a statement would be considered political and would be prohibited, according to a new proposal from the University of California regents.

Under the proposal, academic departments would not be allowed to post political statements on their home pages. And any political statement issued by a department – ​​in any location – would have to meet stricter guidelines.

The regents will vote as early as Wednesday on the plan, which would apply to the UC system’s 10 schools, including Santa Santa Cruz, UCLA and Berkeley.

Higher education is rich with opinions on current events, from Black Lives Matter to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, universities have been under pressure to impose stricter limits on their speech, sometimes in ways that have alarmed supporters of academic freedom.

The state’s progressive politics have generally insulated the University of California from some conservative attacks on colleges. But the regents’ proposal, some teachers and students worry, could mark a sea change at a time when the language used to describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is deeply contentious.

Many Jewish students, teachers and alumni have accused some pro-Palestinian protesters and teachers of anti-Semitic statements. Last month in Berkeley, an event with an Israeli speaker got cancelled after a crowd of protesters smashed doors in what Chancellor Carol Christ described as “an attack on the fundamental values ​​of the university.”

Berkeley political science professor Ron Hassner has staged a sit-in at his office to protest what he says is the administration’s inaction regarding anti-Semitism on campus. And more than 400 professors signed a letter they denounce the way the university system’s ethnic studies departments posted material on their homepages that “defames Israel, rejects the characterization of the Hamas massacre as terrorism and calls on the UC government to ‘end the call for boycott, divestment and sanctions to endorse.’”

On Tuesday, Rep. Virginia Foxx, chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, sent a letter to university officials requesting documents and information about Berkeley’s response to anti-Semitism on campus.

According to Jay Sures, the regent who developed the proposal, banning such statements on a department’s homepage does not restrict academic freedom. Professors and students have many other forums to express themselves, he said, but their opinions on department homepages can be misinterpreted as representative of the University of California.

“The faculty can have access to their Twitter accounts,” Mr. Sures said at a regents meeting in January. “They can do social media. They can publish peer studies. There are so many other ways.”

Some universities have already tightened their rules.

There has also been intense debate over whether universities should adopt the University of Chicago’s famous policy of “institutional neutrality,” meaning the university does not take a position on issues that are not central to the university’s functions .

The debate at the University of California is not quite that. The president, board chair and others who speak as the university’s official voice would not be affected by the regents’ proposal.

In fact, a statement from the university sparked the battle between Mr. Sures and the ethnic studies faculty.

On October 9, Michael V. Drake, the president of the University of California, and Richard Leib, the chairman of the board, issued a statement condemning the Hamas attack as ‘terrorism’ and ‘sickening and incomprehensible’.

A week later, the university’s Ethnic Studies Council, which represents hundreds of the discipline’s faculty members across the system, decided objectedwriting in a letter that the official statement lacked “a full understanding of this historic moment” and contributed to anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian sentiment.

“We call on the UC administrative leadership to withdraw its charges of terrorism, strengthen the Palestinian freedom struggle and oppose Israel’s war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people,” the council said.

Mr. Sures called letter “horrible and disgusting.”

He responded that he would do everything in his power “to protect our Jewish students, and for that matter everyone in our extended community, from your inflammatory and insensitive rhetoric.”

The UC system had already considered the issue of political statements. In 2022, a Committee for Academic Freedom argued against the ban of political statements from departments.

Departments, the report said, should instead set guidelines on when to make statements, be transparent about whose views are represented, and also consider whether they can cool the speech of those who disagree.

For the time being, political statements are allowed, as long as they do not end up in electoral politics.

But the regents’ proposal would limit the departments’ home pages to day-to-day operations, including course descriptions, upcoming events and the release of new publications.

Opinions would be allowed on other university websites. But any political statement would need a disclaimer stating that the views are not necessarily those of the university.

The regents’ proposal adopts other recommendations from the 2022 academic freedom report. It would require department members to vote before issuing a political statement, with ballots collected anonymously to protect dissent. Departments should develop and publish guidelines on the process.

The proposal failed to address the concerns of many faculty members, who say it was politically motivated.

The regents’ proposal “delegitimizes the work we do in ethnic studies,” said Felicity Amaya Schaeffer, Santa Cruz department chair.

The Ethnic Studies Department’s statements are, she said, “based on the academic expertise of almost everyone in the department and especially our faculty who work on Palestine.”

James Steintrager, chairman of the university’s academic senate, expressed concern that the proposal would be an invitation for outsiders to enter academia.

“It’s not just about outright political statements about certain events in the world,” he said in an interview, “but also about things like climate change, vaccine science and things like that.”

But Ty Alper, a Berkeley law professor who led the 2022 Academic Freedom Committee, was pleased that the proposal adopted the recommendations. Mr. Alper said he was less focused on rules about department home pages.

“I’m more concerned,” he said, “about ensuring that teachers have the individual and collective right to make statements on matters of importance.”