Earlier this month, UC Berkeley suspended Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, or EECS, lecturer Peyrin Kao without pay for the spring 2026 semester for \u201cpolitical advocacy\u201d in the classroom, a decision which the board finds to be a gross misuse of power by UC Berkeley\u2019s administration to quell pro-Palestine speech on campus.<\/p>\n
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Benjamin Hermalin found remarks Kao made after class, as well as his hunger strike, to be at odds with Regents Policy 2301, which dictates that course content not deviate from the purpose of the course, and bans political indoctrination in the classroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though the Editorial Board finds Regents Policy 2301, the University of California\u2019s Policy on Course Content, to be an outdated and disturbingly vague regulation, we acknowledge that the spirit of the policy still holds merit because it strives to prevent major deviations from the central themes of courses. Therefore, we find it necessary to frame our assertion that Kao must be reinstated immediately by UC Berkeley through showing how neither Kao\u2019s spring 2024 post-lecture remarks nor his hunger strike have transgressed university regulations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kao has been an outspoken advocate of Palestinian rights in the face of Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza that is funded and armed by the United States and its massive weapons industry. This fall, Kao embarked on a 38-day hunger strike protesting the use of technology in the genocide in Gaza. His hunger strike garnered support from the wider student population, including student leaders and members of the Berkeley City Council.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kao maintains his position as one of the highest rated instructors in UC Berkeley\u2019s EECS department on Rate My Professor, with a 4.9 out of 5. In spite of his effectiveness in the classroom and popularity outside of it, campus administrators are continuing to ignore countless calls for his reinstatement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hermalin determined Kao\u2019s hunger strike and post-lecture remarks to be enough of a violation of Regents Policy 2301 to deserve a suspension; however, we see two glaring problems with this conclusion. Firstly, Kao does not use class time for the purpose of advocacy and more importantly, even if he did, advocacy in the classroom is not explicitly forbidden by Regents Policy 2301.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Berkeley Faculty Association and University Council \u2013 American Federation of Teachers have also found Hermalin\u2019s misuse of Regents Policy 2301 to suspend Kao to be a violation of his rights.\u00a0Hermalin\u2019s finding also dismisses an earlier disciplinary analysis by Kao\u2019s own department that made less severe conclusions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Hermalin\u2019s Oct. 20 letter describing his determination, he uses the words \u201cadvocacy\u201d and \u201cadvocate\u201d a total of 12 times.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, neither term is ever explicitly used in Regents Policy 2301 \u2014 not even once.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Regents Policy 2301 is supposed to ensure that the value of a UC system course is not diminished through instructors \u201cmisusing\u201d the classroom. Examples of misuse mentioned within the policy are \u201callowing (the classroom) to be used for political indoctrination, for purposes other than those for which the course was constituted, or for providing grades without commensurate and appropriate student achievement.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
By equating indoctrination with advocacy, Hermalin makes the argument that Kao has misused the classroom. Despite how absurd this sounds, the vagueness of Regents Policy 2301 makes this equivalence possible. Since the UC Board of Regents have left a term as nebulous and loaded as \u201cindoctrination\u201d undefined, there is no clause in the policy that stops Hermalin from interpreting indoctrination as being identical to advocacy.<\/p>\n
However, course content cannot be interpreted in isolation, as a class does not teach itself. Syllabi do not magically speak out loud to a full lecture hall; they are presented by instructors. Thus, it only makes sense for course content to be evaluated alongside UC regulations about faculty conduct.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Accordingly, if one is to reference the Faculty Code of Conduct, or APM – 015, alongside Regents Policy 2301 when evaluating Kao\u2019s actions, Hermalin\u2019s leap in logic falls flat \u2014 which seems to be why he never mentions this major regulation in his letter of findings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Faculty Code of Conduct grants instructors \u201cthe right to present controversial material relevant to a course of instruction (and) enjoyment of constitutionally protected freedom of expression\u201d with the caveat that they may be held accountable if there is a \u201csignificant intrusion of material unrelated to the course.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite Computer Science 61B being a course about data structures, neither a seven-minute-long post-lecture reflection about ethics made in light of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, nor Peyrin Kao\u2019s hunger strike-afflicted body, can be deemed to be a \u201csignificant intrusion\u201d of unrelated material.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although evaluating someone\u2019s body in accordance with how much it \u201cintrudes\u201d into the course is evidently problematic in itself and ultimately a nonsensical discussion to be having, Kao\u2019s use of the lecture hall after class to inspire thought about ethics in the field of computer science warrants further analysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Data structures, the topic of Kao\u2019s class, are created through utilizing lines of code and algorithms; they are obviously not built through considering questions of ethics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But even so, tying the knowledge gained during a course to the broader responsibility that students as privileged as ourselves carry as a result of our education at one of the best institutions on the planet cannot, under any circumstance, be considered a \u201csignificant intrusion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though it can be argued that there are ways to tie in ethics to computer science without raising contentious global issues in class, the Faculty Code of Conduct grants instructors \u201cthe right to present controversial material\u201d as long as it is relevant to a course of instruction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza is being enabled through collaboration with U.S. tech giants such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon \u2014 companies where many of Kao\u2019s students likely dream of working \u2014 the topic is relevant. Accordingly, it is well within Kao\u2019s rights as an instructor at UC Berkeley to have his students know about the role these businesses have played during this reprehensible chapter of human history.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since Kao\u2019s post-lecture comments in spring 2024 and his hunger strike-afflicted body in fall 2025 cannot be deemed to be \u201csignificant intrusion(s)\u201d into the courses he taught, his acts of advocacy are protected by the Faculty Code of Conduct. If Kao is acting within his rights afforded to him by the University of California as an instructor in the lecture hall, his actions cannot be deemed to be \u201cmisuse(s) of the classroom\u201d and therefore his advocacy cannot be interpreted as indoctrination.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thus, campus\u2019s assertion that Kao violated Regents Policy 2301 is clearly groundless. Instead, it appears administrators have created a narrative of infringement by stretching campus policy in order to fit their political agenda \u2014 establishing an impetus for an astonishingly severe and undue punishment for Kao\u2019s advocacy about Palestine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is in line with campus\u2019s ongoing capitulation to President Donald Trump\u2019s administration at the cost of campus affiliates \u2014 seen earlier this year in UC Berkeley\u2019s disclosure<\/a> of the names of 160 students and faculty who were included in investigations of alleged antisemitism, including Kao.\u00a0<\/p>\n Administrators have not done enough to affirm the rights of campus affiliates in the face of Trump\u2019s effort to chill speech through the suspension of research funding, congressional court hearings and now more than half a dozen investigations into campus, which have led to Department of Justice lawyers resigning after facing pressure to find instances of antisemitism on UC campuses.\u00a0<\/p>\n A lack of transparency from campus administrators regarding their reasoning behind temporarily closing<\/a> the Multicultural Community Center and why they released the names of 160 campus affiliates \u2014 a move that has been said to have no legal basis<\/a> \u2014 reinforce the notion that they have turned their back on students and faculty.\u00a0<\/p>\n By punishing Kao, UC Berkeley is further dissuading campus lecturers and affiliates from exercising their right to protest and engage in political advocacy outside of the classroom or from exercising their First Amendment rights, as protected by the Faculty Code of Conduct, in class.<\/p>\n UC Berkeley\u2019s administration has a long way to go to reestablish trust with faculty and students, but that must start with Kao\u2019s reinstatement and an acknowledgement of the fundamental harm his suspension has caused him, the campus community and our right to free speech.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this month, UC Berkeley suspended Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, or EECS, lecturer Peyrin Kao without pay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[8487,56912,7981,41273,48520,7045,36804,48514,53777,48513,56911,4004,14624,340,5055,14761,143,145,144,37484,38429,56909,2803,56910,48519,149,435,48524,2012],"class_list":["post-105106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-amazon","tag-apm-015","tag-berkeley-city-council","tag-berkeley-faculty-association","tag-computer-science-61b","tag-department-of-justice","tag-editorial-board","tag-eecs","tag-electrical-engineering-and-computer-sciences","tag-executive-vice-chancellor-and-provost-benjamin-hermalin","tag-faculty-code-of-conduct","tag-gaza","tag-google","tag-israel","tag-microsoft","tag-multicultural-community-center","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-palestinian","tag-peyrin-kao","tag-policy-on-course-content","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-rate-my-professor","tag-regents-policy-2301","tag-uc-berkeley","tag-united-states","tag-university-council-american-federation-of-teachers","tag-university-of-california"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}