BY HANK REICHMAN

Today, as the UC Regents were completing their meeting at the UCLA campus, the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA), a partner of the AAUP, and the faculty associations at UC Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Santa Cruz filed an amended unfair labor practice (ULP) complaint against the University of California with the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB).  The advocacy groups represent tenured and tenure-track faculty members.  The complaint supersedes a June 3 filing by the UCLA Faculty Association-AAUP, which charged that campus’s administration for its “failure to uphold, and their choice to interfere with, faculty’s legally protected rights during and after the recent UCLA Palestine Solidarity Encampment.”  Previous ULPs had been filed against the UC administration by three campus unions, the UAW, UC-AFT, and AFSCME.

On May 20, graduate workers represented by UAW Local 4811 began an unfair labor practice strike to protest UC’s unlawful actions, including its interference with employee rights, discrimination against employees making workplace demands, and unilateral changes to working conditions that impacted teaching, work obligations, safety, and academic freedom.  The strike ended on June 7, after UC, which had failed to get relief from PERB, obtained a temporary restraining order from an Orange County judge.

The CUCFA ULP charges UC with suppressing free speech and assembly activities related to the Gaza war.  Citing a series of “vague but threatening communications warning faculty that they could be disciplined” for “indoctrinating” students, the faculty associations allege that the university “has engaged in a relentless campaign to chill faculty’s exercise of their academic freedom and to deter them from teaching about the war in a way that does not align with the University’s position.”

The complaint charges UC administrators with failing to defend faculty members “experiencing threats and harassment from anti-Palestinian counter-protesters, as well as those experiencing actual violence on many campuses,” most notably at UCLA where campus security stood aside for hours as protesters were violently assaulted.   When the graduate workers went on strike, UC “issued new, overbroad restrictions that prohibited faculty from speaking to any students or employees about the strike or other union activities, regardless of whether there was a supervisory relationship.”

The complaint points out that administrations at the Berkeley, Davis, and Riverside campuses successfully negotiated with protesters to resolve the protests peacefully and did not use law enforcement to violently evict their encampments or arrest protesters.  These efforts suggest that the repressive actions taken at UCLA and elsewhere could have been avoided.  At Davis, an agreement negotiated by Chancellor Gary May with protest leaders was peremptorily rejected by UC Regents Chair Richard Leib and Vice Chair Gareth Elliot, who barred the chancellor from further meetings with the students.

The highly detailed 55-page (single-spaced) complaint, supplemented by hundreds of pages of documentary and photographic exhibits, details many incidents that, the faculty associations charge, exemplify a dangerous pattern of disregard for academic freedom and free speech rights of those protesting the Gaza war.  These include a thorough account of the horrific series of events surrounding the Palestine Solidarity Encampment at UCLA:

• “Multiple faculty were subjected to vile verbal harassment and sexual harassment—including violent, transphobic, racist, and sexist slurs and threats—by counter-protesters at or near the UCLA encampment. At least one member of the faculty was physically pushed by counter-protesters attempting to enter the encampment.  Counter-protesters filmed [a] UCLA-FA member . . . and then doxxed her, posting her phone number and email address online.  [She] received hundreds of emails and calls, including callers that stated her correct address and made sexualized threats.  UCLA administrators did not intervene and, predictably, the harassment intensified.”
• Although university administrators frequently appeal to time, place and manner restrictions to limit the ability of protesters to employ sound equipment, UCLA allowed anti-Palestinian counter-protesters to erect a stage and sound system and hold a rally adjacent to the encampment. “At this rally, counter-protesters . . . broadcast at high volume graphic videos of killings, violence, and sexual violence that have occurred during the Israel-Palestine conflict onto a jumbotron.  The University allowed the jumbotron to continue playing these videos on loop on the plaza for days, only removing it . . . after the encampment had been forcibly evicted.”  Faculty members said the loud volume interfered with their ability to teach in surrounding buildings.
• “Starting at approximately 10:00 pm on April 30, anti-Palestinian counter-protesters . . . assaulted students with metal pipes, mace, bear spray, and pepper spray, while others tore down barricades surrounding the encampment and launched fireworks into the encampment. Campus security and law enforcement were stationed approximately 200 feet away from the encampment but allowed the assault to continue unchecked for four hours.
• “A group of UCLA-FA members, . . . along with other faculty, did their best to protect the students.  Because no one else intervened, at one point they lined up to physically shield students from the counter-protesters.  Faculty tended to students’ injuries.  Faculty requested help from private security but received no assistance. . . .
• “Faculty also pleaded with the administration for help. . . .  Nevertheless, UCLA officials stood by while the violence unfolded.  The administration waited until 12:30 am, two and a half hours after counter-protesters began their assault, to request assistance from the California Highway Patrol.  Some faculty who sought shelter in their offices were denied access to their own buildings by private security personnel, and instead left to brave the counter-protesters assault. . . .   It was not until approximately 2:45 am on May 1 that officers finally intervened to separate the counter-protesters from the encampment.  During the entire attack and its aftermath, emergency medical services were present at UCLA’s campus but were not allowed by campus officials to come to the encampment to treat the injuries of students or faculty.”

In the wake of this monstrous assault, the complaint continues, the University on May 1 invited law enforcement onto campus to forcibly evict protesters.  Several UCLA-FA members were arrested and/or assaulted by police.  “Faculty were kept in detention in squalid conditions for nearly 12 hours.  Law enforcement told faculty they were held for additional time at the University’s request, rather than being processed and released on site.”

The complaint documents subsequent events on May 23 and 26, during which student protesters and faculty supporters were further abused by police and private security officers hired by the university.  On June 3, the UCLA-FA filed the initial ULP complaint, which led, five days later, to the initiation of university disciplinary actions against faculty members arrested on May 1.  Then, on June 10, UCLA arrested some 25 students, faculty members, and employees attempting to revive the encampment.  On June 21, the University issued disciplinary charges against four UCLA-FA members arrested during the encampment eviction and the June 10 protest.  On July 1, a UCLA-FA member who had been arrested was denied promotion, without explanation, even though he had been recommended enthusiastically by his department.

Taken as a whole, the complaint argues at great length, these actions amount to unlawful behavior under California law.

Similar events transpired at other UC campuses.  At UC San Diego, the complaint alleges, “management openly surveilled and intimidated faculty engaged in protected activity;” “used police to violently clear the encampment and arrest students and faculty;” and “subjected two faculty members to disciplinary investigation for participating in the encampment.”

At Santa Cruz, “UC police raided the UCSC Gaza Solidarity Encampment and arrested peaceful protesters, including faculty who were supporting students and protesting workplace issues;” a faculty member was investigated for the “crime” of retweeting a widely shared and mocking portrayal of the campus provost; and three faculty members were summarily banned from campus without due process and in violation of campus policies and procedures.  As the complaint argues, the banned faculty members “did not pose any threat of disruption, or harm to persons or property, so there was no basis for banning them from campus.”

At Irvine, the complaint contends, the administration dealt disparately with disruptive expression by pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli advocates.  The university “openly surveilled faculty and protesters but did not intervene against counter-protester aggression and harassment.”  In one incident, “a pro-Israeli UCI professor and an unknown associate harassed and physically intimidated a student, but UCI dismissed the complaint” even when presented with a video of the incident.

The pattern was repeated as well at UC San Francisco, a medical school.  There, however, one incident stands out:

Starting in October 2023, one SFFA member repeatedly spoke out against the war, including through teach-ins at the UCSF encampment, through social media posts, and in at least one widely viewed Substack article that protested racist, anti-Palestinian statements made by UCSF physicians.  In response, UCSF opened an investigation against the professor.  Then, in April 2024, UCSF sent a plain-clothes police officer to an academic panel to monitor a presentation given by the SFFA member without informing the SFFA member or panel organizers.  During the panel, the officer flashed his badge at students and told attendees he was at the panel specifically because the SFFA member requested he be there.  The SFFA member had never made such a request.  The SFFA is unaware of any police officer previously monitoring an academic panel, and students and faculty were intimidated and shaken by the officer’s presence.  After the professor learned what had happened, she asked the administration why the officer was there and using her name.  UCPD stated the officer was present to help ensure that faculty, staff, and students pursue their work and activities at UCSF in a “safe and welcoming manner free from disruption.”  The SFFA member objected to this characterization, expressing concern about police presence. . . .  When the professor’s colleague asked additional questions about the unusual presence of police during the panel, UCPD and the administration simply did not respond.

Perhaps the most concerning charges involve the UC Office of the President (UCOP) and the UC Regents.

• “On April 5, 2024, UCOP announced that it had proposed revisions to the University Policy on Faculty Conduct and the Administration of Discipline that would permit the administration to impose a no-fault pause on any current or future academic personnel decision . . . of any faculty investigated for alleged misconduct, if the administration found that the alleged misconduct was relevant to the assessment criteria for academic personnel review actions.”
• “On May 9, after various campuses had ordered the arrest of dozens of students, student employees, and faculty, UCOP issued “guiding principles” for campus discipline. This document states that any ‘member of the university community who is arrested for unlawful behavior or cited for a violation of university policy must go through the applicable review process, such as . . . [the] employee disciplinary process.’  On May 16, the UC Board of Regents endorsed UCOP’s May 9 guidelines.”
• After the graduate workers represented by the UAW voted to strike to protest the university’s repressive actions, UCOP circulated an FAQ for faculty. It stated, “Faculty, Instructors of Record, and/or Principal Investigators should not comment on the strike to students and employees—even students and employees they do not advise/mentor/teach, or supervise—except to direct represented employees to their union for any questions they have, including questions about the strike, union membership, or the University’s position on the strike.  However, nothing prevents engaging in normal conversations with students and employees concerning subjects unrelated to union membership, union activities, or strike activities.”  Such a restriction amounts to a clear violation of faculty and student speech rights.

In short, the faculty associations conclude that UC “has made clear that it favors pro-Israel speech and that it will silence pro-Palestinian speech, including speech by academics in the context of their courses.”

These actions by the University of California and the response by CUCFA and the campus associations come in the context of an alarming “wave of administrative policies intended to crack down on peaceful campus protest” recently condemned by the AAUP.  As the AAUP noted in its statement, “Institutions of higher learning should aim to foster an environment in which faculty, graduate employees, students, and other members of the campus community are free to discuss and debate difficult topics, inside and outside the classroom.”

To be sure, the conflict over Israel and Palestine evokes passions that can be difficult to control.  But if any institution should be able to direct those passions toward constructive dialogue, universities should be.  One need not support all the demands of protesters nor approve of their predictably heated rhetoric—I, for one, often do not—to support their rights to free expression.  At a time when universities are being urged by politicians to embrace “neutrality,” the hypocrisy of those demands becomes clear when universities like UC so clearly privilege the rights of sometimes violent counter-protesters over those of peaceful dissenters, most obviously because those universities are in no way really “neutral,” but instead favor one side over the other.

I can recall when the University of California spent a small fortune to defend the rights of the bigoted provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at Berkeley when a violent mob attacked.  Why not extend those protections to UC’s own students and faculty?

That tenured and tenure-track faculty in the country’s largest public research university system are taking action to stand up for academic freedom and free speech is more than welcome.  The UC Regents and PERB must take due notice.

Contributing editor Hank Reichman is professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay; former AAUP vice-president and chair of the AAUP Foundation; and from 2012-2021 Chair of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. His book, The Future of Academic Freedom, based in part on posts to this blog, was published in 2019.  His Understanding Academic Freedom was published in October, 2021; a second edition will be published in March 2025.