UC Berkeley’s Memorial Glade. Photo: John Morgan.

We are Jewish students at UC Berkeley. On November 28, we sued Berkeley for antisemitism.

Protecting free speech and addressing antisemitism is not a zero sum issue. Left alone, hostility towards Jews leads to discrimination and violence against others. Free speech can’t survive in this environment. Therefore, tackling antisemitism is the first step in restoring free speech.

UC Berkeley’s antisemitism is rooted in a rigid ideology: Jews are oppressors.

At our school, Jew-hate is green-washed as social justice. To belong, Jews must renounce their identity or else be shunned.

In October, Jewish students at Berkeley were told that there was no threat to their safety, but that they should “avoid becoming targets.”

In another email, our antisemitism concerns were questioned, given that Berkeley has a Jewish “provost, at least one other Jewish cabinet member, at least five Jewish deans, and hundreds of Jewish faculty.” Under this logic, Berkeley cannot have sexism. We have a female chancellor, female police chief, and multiple female deans and department heads.

As the semester went on, our fears only intensified.

Two Jewish students were physically assaulted on campus, one week apart. Berkeley has kept both cases “active,” yet refuses to investigate them as hate. The university suggested we seek counseling and make academic flexibility requests. They also sympathized for anything that happened which may have been “offensive.”

Even when we were told to “f*ck off” by classmates, the university stayed silent. When we feared grading retaliation and the pressure to hide our Jewish identity, the university offered no recourse. And when Jewish teachers received e-mails calling for their gassing, the administration was — you guessed it — nowhere to be found.

In December, a Jewish student was robbed and left the note: “F*ck Jews. Free Palestine. From the river to the sea.” Berkeley failed to call this anti-Jewish hate. Previously, Berkeley had no qualms about specifying anti-trans and anti-Asian American hate.

Berkeley is not equipped for the intimidation that Jewish students encounter in the wild. During a protest this semester, students walked through a river to get to class.

The university must know that this is out of control. Perhaps that is why we are sent to Jewish spaces for belonging: to offset the Jewish-free zones on campus.

Berkeley is home to Jewish institutes and museums, Hillel and Chabad, and the Antisemitism Education Initiative. Recently, administrators have joined Jewish students for Shabbat and Hanukkah. This is where we are safe to be Jewish.

How is this different from a Jewish ghetto? Instead of dealing directly with antisemites, Berkeley has manufactured Jewish pockets on campus.

To break the harassment, Berkeley must stop excusing raw antisemitism as “anti-Zionism.”

Berkeley must recognize that for many Jews, Israel and shared Jewish ancestry is inherent to identity. Just as the police investigated an anti-kosher incident as hate, the same goes for Israel. Otherwise, we must hide our identity when anti-Jew hate is ignored. This contradicts Berkeley’s “free exchange of ideas” principle.

Long-term fixes will require Berkeley to re-evaluate its governance and culture.

Berkeley’s decentralized governance model means that the Academic Senate has more power than deans. As a result, a minority dominates decision rights, stifling pluralism and discouraging dissent. Checks and balances are necessary to counter this polarization, as no structures currently offset this lopsidedness. Administrative decisions are made in silos. Consistent procedures and accountability expectations are inhibited when each situation is treated differently.

For example, in a lecture, engineering students were indoctrinated by their teacher’s 18-minute diatribe on the linkage between their student struggles and Palestinians’. Nevermind that Berkeley previously sent multiple rounds of forceful communication discouraging classroom political indoctrination. 

Students were told “[Berkeley] is looking further into this.” These words are cheap. Weeks later, the teacher hosted a teach-in focused on technology and Israeli apartheid. Evidently, behavior continues, guised as peace. Berkeley must take disciplinary action to hold staff accountable.

Repairing Berkeley’s culture comes next. The university’s diversity, equity, inclusion and justice efforts lack pluralism.

Berkeley’s Antisemitism Education Initiative should be included in initiatives that already include anti-Black racism and Islamophobia. Furthermore, centers formed for inclusion should not exclude people.

When Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute blamed “power structures” for the Israel-Gaza War, they conveniently omitted Islamism. The institute’s website also spotlights Islamophobia, but not antisemitism too. This double standard is glaring.

Only by addressing broken governance and campus culture can students’ education be unburdened by discrimination.

Hannah Schlacter is a second year MBA at UC Berkeley. Danielle Sobkin is the daughter of Soviet refugees and a first-gen student. Both are members of Jewish Americans For Fairness in Education (JAFE), a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed against UC Berkeley for antisemitism.