Jewish Protests at Berkeley, a Follow Up and Victory Lap

UC-Berkeley Political Science professor Ron Hassner has ended his sleep-in protest, stating that the university administration has agreed to all of his requests. In particular he flagged the following:

(1) First, he asked that "all students, even the ones wearing Stars of David, should be free to pass through [Sather Gate] unobstructed. The right of protestors to express their views must be defended. It does not extend to blocking or threatening fellow students." The university has since "posted observers from the Division of Student Affairs to monitor bullying at the gate. These are not the passive yellow-vested security personnel who have stood around Sproul in prior weeks. The Student Affairs representatives are there to actively document bullying, abuse, blocking, or intrusion on personal space."

(2) The second request was for the Chancellor to "'uphold this university’s venerable free speech tradition' by inviting back any speaker whose talk has been interrupted or canceled. The chancellor did so gladly and confidently. The speaker who was attacked by a violent mob three weeks ago spoke to an even larger crowd this Monday."

(3) The third request was to fund and implement "mandatory Islamophobia and anti-Semitism training on campus". This has also apparently been arranged.

I give Ron a lot of credit. First, he's not dunking on the administration here, in fact, he gives them a lot of credit: "It is my belief that campus leaders would have fulfilled all these requests of their own accord even in the absence of my sleep-in.... At best, our sleep-in reinforced the university’s determination to act and accelerated the process somewhat."

Second, it's important to emphasize that Ron's protest did not ask or come close to asking that Berkeley silence anyone else's speech, including that of the protesters at Sather Gate. While they should not be able to obstruct Jewish students seeking to travel to campus, they have the right to present their views as well as anyone. It is not a concession but an acknowledgment of the proper role of the university administration that he did not press for them to end the protests outright.

Third, one might notice that Hassner's last demand was for antisemitism and Islamophobia training to be implemented on campus. In recent years, it has become almost cliched to hear certain putative anti-antisemitism warriors express fury whenever the fight against antisemitism is paired with the fight against Islamophobia, racism, or other forms of bigotry. They call it "All Lives Mattering" (although, when these coalitions against hate form and antisemitism isn't included in the collective, they call it "Jews Don't Count"). I've long thought that this was an abuse of the "All Lives Matter" concept, and it is notable that Hassner -- who not only has a ground-level perspective but who is actually putting his money where his mouth is in terms of combatting antisemitism -- doesn't see the pairing as a distraction or diminishment of what he's been fighting for but as an asset. More people could stand to take note.