{"id":93385,"date":"2025-12-13T15:02:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T15:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/93385\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T15:02:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T15:02:12","slug":"uc-berkeley-settles-with-israeli-visiting-professor-after-60000-discrimination-lawsuit-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/93385\/","title":{"rendered":"UC Berkeley settles with Israeli visiting professor after $60,000 discrimination lawsuit | Campus"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UC Board of Regents settled a discrimination lawsuit<\/a> filed earlier this year by UC Berkeley visiting dance professor Yael Nativ on Monday. Under the settlement, campus acknowledged that Nativ faced discrimination based on her Israeli national origin when her application to return to teach was denied, which is a violation of the UC\u2019s Anti-Discrimination Policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nativ will receive $60,000, and her attorneys from the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, as well as Olivier & Schreiber PC, will receive $56,000 to cover legal fees and costs, according to the settlement agreement. Per the agreement, UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons will personally apologize to Nativ, and campus will invite her to teach the course she would have taught in the fall of 2024 in the semester of her choosing in 2026 or 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cI respect and appreciate Dr. Nativ\u2019s decision to settle this case,\u201d Lyons said in a statement. \u201cShe is owed the apology I will provide on behalf of our campus. We look forward to welcoming Dr. Nativ back to Berkeley to teach again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nativ was a visiting professor in Spring 2022 funded by the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies.She taught a course on contemporary dance in Israel in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, or TDPS.\u00a0<\/p>\n

TDPS Chair SanSan Kwan denied Nativ\u2019s application to return to teach the course in the 2024-25 school year in a WhatsApp message where Kwan said, \u201c(My) dept cannot host you for a class next fall. \u2026 Things are very hot here right now and many of our grad students are angry. I would be putting the dept and you in a terrible position if you taught here,\u201d according to the lawsuit.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

After Nativ wrote an op-ed in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz about the decision, and alumni filed complaints with UC Berkeley\u2019s Office of the Chancellor, the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination, or OPHD, opened an investigation. OPHD concluded that Nativ faced discrimination based on her national origin in September 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t have needed to file a lawsuit; Dr. Nativ had a clear-cut case of discrimination,\u201d said Brandeis Center Litigation Staff Attorney Rebecca Harris in an email.<\/p>\n

OPHD report gave Nativ the opportunity to propose remedies; however, her remedies went unanswered by campus administration for months. Nativ then sued the regents in August\u00a0for national origin discrimination and failure to prevent discrimination under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, as well as the California Education Code.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cInstitutions of higher education bear a fundamental responsibility to uphold the values of equity, inquiry and open dialogue,\u201d Nativ said in a press statement. \u201cIncidents of discrimination of any kind must have no place within environments dedicated to learning and the free exchange of ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the terms of the settlement, campus said it will continue to enforce the UC\u2019s Anti-Discrimination Policy and address potential violations of the policy \u201cpromptly and equitably.\u201d Campus also said it will take actions when necessary, including disciplinary measures, to prevent, stop and rectify discrimination.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Brandeis Center has a separate ongoing lawsuit against campus and the UC Berkeley School of Law for alleged discrimination against Jewish students and professors.Harris hopes that the settlement and the ongoing lawsuit will lead to \u201cfurther meaningful change\u201d to confront antisemitism on campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to accomplish justice for Dr. Nativ with this settlement,\u201d Harris said in an email. \u201cAll Dr. Nativ wanted from the beginning was an apology, an invitation to return to teach her successful course again and a commitment from Berkeley that it will not discriminate against anyone because of their nationality in the future.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UC Board of Regents settled a discrimination lawsuit filed earlier this year by UC Berkeley visiting dance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[21725,764,51369,51368,51363,51365,51364,51366,36478,340,143,145,144,40935,51362,51361,51360,41249,51367,51359],"class_list":["post-93385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-alameda-county-superior-court","tag-berkeley","tag-california-education-code","tag-california-fair-employment-and-housing-act","tag-chancellor-rich-lyons","tag-dance-and-performance-studies","tag-department-of-theater","tag-haaretz","tag-helen-diller-institute-for-jewish-law-and-israel-studies","tag-israel","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-office-for-the-prevention-of-harassment-and-discrimination","tag-olivier-schreiber-pc","tag-the-louis-d-brandeis-center-for-human-rights-under-law","tag-uc-anti-discrimination-policy","tag-uc-board-of-regents","tag-uc-office-of-the-chancellor","tag-yael-nativ"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93385","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=93385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}