Dear UC-AFT Members:
We are writing to you to express our outrage at Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Benjamin Hermalin’s recommendation to suspend UC Berkeley lecturer Peyrin Kao for his free speech and expression, which are protected by the First Amendment and the principles of academic freedom, per UC policy and our union’s collective bargaining agreement. We call on you to join us in demanding that Hermalin immediately acknowledge the error, injustice, and precedent-setting danger of his determination and reverse it.
On October 20, Hermalin announced that Peyrin violated Regents Policy 2301, which prohibits “political indoctrination” in the classroom, in spring 2024 and again in fall 2025 when he advocated outside of his class, “CS 61B: Data Structures,” for justice for the Palestinian people. Hermalin advised department chairs to at the very least suspend Peyrin without pay for one semester—which they have done—adding that he would support the department’s permanent termination of Peyrin. Hermalin’s determination distorts institutional policy and disregards faculty rights and well-being in ways that, whatever his motivations, signify complicity in the conservative campaign to ban political speech supportive of Palestine and also the Trump administration’s broader movement to challenge free, critical inquiry in higher education.
Hermalin’s recommendation has implications for all lecturers at UC. It lays bare the university’s willingness to scapegoat lecturers and treat them with utter callousness and, ultimately, as fungible. A disciplinary measure involving the suspension of pay and benefits can create or exacerbate precariousness for a contingent faculty member like Peyrin. The material consequences are real and potentially ruinous, and for this reason the disciplinary measure also operates coercively. Hermalin’s action comes just months after UC Berkeley recklessly turned over personal information of 160 faculty, students, and staff, including Peyrin’s, to federal investigators pursuing allegations of “antisemitic harassment and discrimination.” These disclosures have put people’s careers and safety at risk.
In his October 20 recommendation, Hermalin makes the contradictory assertion that in spring 2024, Peyrin was “distorting the instructional process” by making comments after class time about ethical problems facing the field of electrical engineering and computer sciences (EECS) due to its implication in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Furthermore, Hermalin determined, in fall 2025 Peyrin “intended to influence his students’ thinking” by mentioning that he was “undergoing a starvation diet” for a cause he believed in. At that time Peyrin was engaged in a hunger strike to protest the UC’s investments in Israel and the role that EECS has played in supporting Israel’s war on Gaza. Hermalin acknowledges that Peyrin did not explain why he was engaging in the diet; nonetheless, Hermalin speculates about “the visible physical toll it presumably was taking and the adverse consequences it may have had on the quality of his instruction,” concluding that Peyrin’s reference to his hunger strike, along with how he may have appeared physically, “all represent a form of advocacy, albeit nonverbal.”
There are serious problems with Hermalin’s logic and determination, which we will address. But before doing so, we want to note that, in response, UC-AFT has filed a formal grievance, per our union contract, which protects all lecturers from unfair and unwarranted disciplinary action. We are confident that the grievance process will resolve in Peyrin and UC-AFT’s favor. Even so, we demand that in the interim Hermalin acknowledge his mistakes and revoke his recommendation.
Hermalin’s determination invokes Regents Policy 2301, which exists to protect against “misuse of the classroom.” It mandates that “the University remain aloof from politics and never function as an instrument for the advance of partisan interest” and that the university may not allow the classroom to be “used for political indoctrination, for purposes other than those for which the course was constituted.”
Regarding Hermalin’s finding on the spring 2024 allegation: Hermalin suggests that the comments Peyrin made outside of class time in spring 2024 constituted classroom misuse–despite the obvious illogic of this claim, and despite the fact that the comments concerned ethical problems facing EECS and were, arguably, relevant to the class. Hermalin’s determination distorts policy 2301—which states that “There are many hours available during the daily activities of students and faculty for free discourse on matters of concern to them as citizens” and that the university recognizes the “importance…of a free exchange of ideas, and of pursuit of the truth wherever it may lead—popular or unpopular though that may be.” In other words: Free speech outside of class, regardless of whether it is relevant to class, is valuable and protected.
Regarding Hermalin’s finding on the fall 2025 allegation: Initially authored in 1970, Regents Policy 2301 puts forth a vague definition of “indoctrination,” and Hermalin exploits this weakness. In his recommendation, Hermalin insinuates that Peyrin’s fall 2025 in-class mere mention of his political action, along with the possible “visible physical toll” of the hunger strike, were meant to influence student political views—and that this intended influence was itself enough to constitute a form of indoctrination and therefore was a policy violation. Hermalin’s troubling interpretation of Regents Policy 2301 mirrors an authoritarian control tactic that we have seen wielded by the Trump administration: the co-optation, redefinition, and deployment of terminology for the purpose of ideological manipulation, policing, and censorship. An obvious example is the Trump administration’s charge of “antisemitism” against those who question Israel’s war on the Palestinian people, which the United States government supports. In Hermalin’s case, he reimagines the concept of “indoctrination,” treating it as synonymous with “advocacy.” If any reference to any aspect of one’s political advocacy, inside or outside of the classroom, charged with any sentiment whatsoever, may be understood as “indoctrination”—which by definition involves formal teaching, a sustained instructive process, not occasional comments—then Hermalin becomes free to wield and apply the concept to delegitimize and outlaw any speech or sentiment that would seem to critique, undermine, or interfere with institutional aims.
The significance of Hermalin’s action against Peyrin, along with what it reveals about institutional aims, is clear: Hermalin has grossly misapplied a Regents policy prohibiting indoctrination in the classroom, resulting in a demonstration of institutional compliance at a time when federal research funds are being conditioned by Trump on universities’ willingness to police “antisemitism” and “‘woke’ indoctrination.” As ProPublica and the Chronicle of Higher Education report, earlier this year the Department of Justice tasked investigators with rapidly assembling evidence that the UC had tolerated antisemitism so that it could file a civil rights complaint. The DOJ settled on UCLA as its target, and the Trump administration used the forced findings, along with findings of “illegal affirmative action,” to begin suspending science funding to the campus. Currently, the UC is in settlement discussions with the government, hoping to prevent broader funding cuts across the system. In this context, Hermalin’s determination should not be mistaken for a single bad administrative call. Rather, it represents the university’s readiness to throw contingent faculty under the bus, disregard due process, and censor free speech to preempt federal scrutiny. Hermalin wishes to make an example of Peyrin, who through principled speech and expression has compelled the university to reckon with its own moral direction.
Peyrin’s measured expression of political sentiment to students in fall 2025—speech and expression that fall within the purview of academic freedom—and the university’s harmful and coercive disciplinary response throw into stark relief the shameful willingness of Hermalin and UC Berkeley to advance false claims of indoctrination grounded in authoritarian logics and disregard the rights and well-being of precarious faculty, not to mention treat adult students like children who lack the ability to think for themselves. Hermalin’s suspension of Peyrin is a litmus test. Will we, as scholar-teachers and members of the campus community, tolerate this level of scrutiny, policing, and attempted control of our words and expression?
We will not. Because we as a union believe that we have the right to be safe from scapegoating and punishment for our political questions, critiques, values, and beliefs, whether they show up in our conversations with students, on our clothing, or through our lived embodiment. UC-AFT is committed to defending our members and our community against ideological control tactics. We will fight first and foremost to strengthen and protect academic freedom as a policy and a principle at UC—and we call on each and every one of our members to join us.
Sincerely,
Leaders of UC-AFT Bay Area Chapter
