{"id":190014,"date":"2026-02-23T14:36:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T14:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/190014\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T14:36:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T14:36:06","slug":"deliberations-around-kao-suspension-drag-on-leaving-some-faculty-reeling-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/190014\/","title":{"rendered":"Deliberations around Kao suspension drag on, leaving some faculty reeling | Campus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some campus faculty remain concerned about freedom of speech and academic protections as deliberations regarding Peyrin Kao\u2019s suspension<\/a> continue.<\/p>\n

Faculty in the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate, Berkeley Faculty Association and other groups have begun working on addressing these concerns, including drafting a resolution that the Academic Senate looks to vote on at its April 7 meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFaculty are feeling some level of fear about being disciplined for their speech,\u201d said BFA chair Zoe Hamstead. \u201cThe idea that we could be disciplined for extramural speech is especially chilling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Committees of the Academic Senate have since met, or have planned meetings, to discuss questions raised by the suspension.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Jan. 27, the Committee on Academic Freedom, or ACFR, met with\u00a0 Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Benjamin Hermalin, the author of the letter recommending Kao\u2019s suspension.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to professor and ACFR committee member Daniel Melia, the meeting gave more clarity on \u201cwhere the difficulties are\u201d with Regents Policy 2301, which prohibits the use of a classroom for \u201cpolitical indoctrination\u201d or instruction outside the scope of a course. Hermalin alleged Kao\u2019s hunger strike violated this policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Abdullah Memon, the ACFR\u2019s undergraduate student member, the committee\u2019s Jan. 27 meeting did little to answer questions raised by Kao\u2019s case, only discussing Regents Policy 2301 and its applications in general terms. Memon said Hermalin declined to comment on Kao specifically because his case is \u201congoing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Multiple professors have taken particular issue with the policy\u2019s use of the term \u201cindoctrination.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Memon, Hermalin did not clarify confusion regarding where the line between argument and indoctrination lies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some professors also flagged the policy\u2019s origins, citing the fact that it was created in 1970 amid nationwide protests against the Vietnam War.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hamstead referenced the McCarthy era, during which the House Un-American Activities Committee targeted individuals across the United States who allegedly held communist sympathies. Multiple faculty members suggested that Kao was punished because speech in favor of Palestine does not align with campus administrators\u2019 politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI am concerned about basically a selective prosecution,\u201d said Colleen Lye, an Academic Senate and BFA advisory board member.<\/p>\n

In conversations with The Daily Californian, multiple faculty members have also claimed they know of no precedent for a suspension such as Kao\u2019s under Regents Policy 2301.<\/p>\n

University Council – American Federation of Teachers, or UC-AFT, is in the midst of a grievance process, in which they are seeking, among other things, Kao\u2019s reinstatement and return of lost income.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we see here is disparate treatment,\u201d said UC-AFT Grievance Steward Ian Kivelin Davis. \u201cHere\u2019s a policy and it\u2019s been applied to one person despite the universe of politically-informed discussions and debates on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Occurring at the same time as UC-AFT\u2019s grievance process, the Academic Senate has started work on resolutions which may encourage campus to further faculty involvement in the disciplinary process and establish stronger protections for classroom speech.<\/p>\n

The senate is expected to offer a resolution spurred by Kao\u2019s case at its April 7 general meeting. The Academic Senate does not have legislative power itself in many areas concerning Kao\u2019s case or the authority to rescind Kao\u2019s suspension.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Hamstead, if those resolutions do not go far enough to restore confidence in academic freedom, the BFA will \u201cescalate\u201d matters, which may entail pushing a resolution of its own.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of faculty who I have heard from remain extremely concerned about the border ramifications and the precedent that could be set as a result of this suspension,\u201d Hamstead said. \u201cMany of us are very concerned that shared governance processes could be circumvented.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some campus faculty remain concerned about freedom of speech and academic protections as deliberations regarding Peyrin Kao\u2019s suspension…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[89192,89190,3206,50800,41273,89196,89194,89191,89193,89195,47872,143,145,144,3783,38429,48519,48524,516,89189],"class_list":{"0":"post-190014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-abdullah-memon","9":"tag-academic-freedom-committee","10":"tag-academic-senate","11":"tag-benjamin-hermalin","12":"tag-berkeley-faculty-association","13":"tag-christopher-kutz","14":"tag-colleen-lye","15":"tag-daniel-melia","16":"tag-house-un-american-activities-committee","17":"tag-ian-kivelin-davis","18":"tag-mccarthy","19":"tag-oakland","20":"tag-oakland-headlines","21":"tag-oakland-news","22":"tag-palestine","23":"tag-peyrin-kao","24":"tag-regents-policy-2301","25":"tag-university-council-american-federation-of-teachers","26":"tag-vietnam-war","27":"tag-zoe-hamstead"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190014","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=190014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}