The College Fix

UC Berkley has deleted a course description that described Hamas as “a revolutionary resistance force combating settler-colonialism.”

The description was removed from the comparative literature course, slated for the spring 2025 semester, after uproar.

Criticisms of the description say that regardless of academic freedom, the course is incorrect. Others described it as unhinged. There are calls for the course to be canceled altogether.

The “Leninism and Anarchism: A Theoretical Approach to Literature and Film” course is set to “explore the genocide of the ‘indigenous Palestinians by the Israeli Occupying Forces,'” according to the now-deleted description, the Jerusalem Post reported.

“The course seemingly praises the ‘anarchist’ practices of Hamas and other groups, saying they help ‘envision a better tomorrow,” the Post reported. “UC Berkeley has since removed the course description. [A spokesperson said] the matter was being addressed.”

Canary Mission, a pro-Israel activism group, retained screenshots of the original description.

The Jewish News of Northern California reported that “Before it was edited, the course description promised to concentrate on current affairs, left-wing movements and what it called the ‘destructive imperial agenda’ of the U.S. and Israel.”

“An internet archive shows the original course description that was visible on Friday. By Sunday, the description had been removed, and on Monday the names of the grad students teaching the course were removed, too. The course remains one of 15 sections open to undergraduates taking ‘English Composition in Connection with the Reading of World Literature,'” Jewish News of Northern California reported, adding:

“How do we learn from the revolutionary visions set out by those who have come before us, and those who will come after?” the course description stated, listing readings from authors including Assata Shakur, a former member of the far-left Black Liberation Army currently wanted by the FBI, as well as Mao Tse-Tung and Vladimir Lenin.

A screenshot of the course description circulated widely online, earning opprobrium from a number of pro-Israel social media accounts that seized on its lionization of Hamas as a movement that, in the words of the course description, had shown a “commitment to anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism.”

“Glorifying terror groups in higher education is an issue that has to be rooted out at its core,” Hen Mazzig, a social media influencer, pundit and opinion writer with a large following across the U.S. and Israel, wrote on X. “Berkeley must not only remove this course but apologize to its Jewish community.”

Mazzig’s post had been seen more than 130,000 times as of Monday and was only one of many others like it on X.

As The College Fix previously reported, earlier this year, UC Berkeley was accused of not doing enough to protect Jewish students on campus in a federal lawsuit.

Over the course of the school year, antisemitism incidents on campus included the physical assault of an undergraduate Jewish student at a Hamas celebration rally, the disruption of a Jewish student prayer group, and pro-Palestinian events that made Jewish students feel threatened, according to the lawsuit.

The university responded by saying it’s already implemented “proposed ‘remedies’” mentioned in the case.

MORE: All UC Berkeley freshmen will learn about ‘Jewish history and culture’

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