2024 Free Palestine encampments<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 was shut down due to \u201ccriticism received from a number of campus stakeholders.\u201d It reopened in February 2026, after the removal of all artwork from its walls.<\/p>\nCampus spokesperson Dan Mogulof said registered student organizations and other groups seeking to host events in the MCC must have the event approved or co-sponsored by the MCC.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll programming and events held in MCC will be MCC-planned and sponsored,\u201d Mogulof said.<\/p>\n
Senior Leela Mehta-Harwitz, a member of UC Berkeley Young Democratic Socialists of America and Berkeley STEM4Palestine, alleged it is now \u201crisky\u201d to host events in the MCC due to it being a \u201csite of interest for the administration\u201d and its history of previously suppressing political speech.<\/p>\n
Mehta-Harwitz is an opinion writer for The Daily Californian.<\/p>\n
They said there\u2019s now been \u201ca real hamper(ing)\u201d of campus organizing, due to the difficulty of not having a centralized space to store things, print and meet.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Mehta-Harwitz said although sad, they were not surprised by the changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe I\u2019m just so jaded now that it\u2019s hard for me to remember being surprised by anything like that,\u201d Mehta-Harwitz said. \u201cHaving been here for a few years now and watched how direct actions and protests go down, and how the university has increasingly taken advantage of the fact that people feel hopeless to continue cracking down on pro-Palestine protests and actions in the hopes that people will just forget \u2014 I\u2019m not surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the meantime, organizers have moved to at least two other spaces.<\/p>\n
The Solidarity Collective is one of these new spots, particularly for Berkeley STEM 4 Palestine, according to Mehta-Harwitz. The collective describes itself as an explicitly pro-Palestine coworking space, and offers free membership and resources for organizations for social good.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, QARC has become an alternative space for campus organizing, according to Mehta-Harwitz.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it really has taken over a lot of what the MCC offered, but it can\u2019t be a full replacement because it is its own space with its own reason for existence,\u201d Mehta-Harwitz said. \u201cThe MCC was singular, it was a hard-fought victory and the fact that they took it away means a lot, even if we\u2019ve been able to find alternative venues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Max Schlosberg, a member of Students for Justice for Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, said he hopes campus will increase protections for on-campus organizations and students, staff and faculty, especially for speaking out on issues such as Palestine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can try and silence us, but they\u2019re not going to stop us,\u201d Schlosberg said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a small room tucked into the Hearst Field Annex, Students Organizing for Liberation at UC Berkeley gathered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[40934,179139,121813,30099,179141,179137,14761,143,145,144,35800,179140,179138,30097,46440],"class_list":["post-453373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-2024-free-palestine-encampments","tag-berkeley-stem-4-palestine","tag-hearst-field-annex","tag-jewish-voice-for-peace","tag-leela-mehta-harwitz","tag-max-schlosberg","tag-multicultural-community-center","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-queer-alliance-resource-center","tag-solidarity-collective","tag-students-for-justice-for-palestine","tag-students-organizing-for-liberation","tag-young-democratic-socialists-of-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453373","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=453373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}