The College Fix

University leaders working to ‘improve campus climate for Jewish students’ after unrest

In the wake of campus unrest linked to pro-Palestinian protests, the University of California Berkeley is expanding its antisemitism education this fall, including in its Golden Bear Orientation.

The new programs also will ensure student organization leaders comply with campus policies and procedures, Antisemitism Education Initiative Director Gregg Drinkwater told The College Fix in a recent phone interview. He said education on both Islamophobia and antisemitism will be included.

“Increasing awareness of antisemitism helps … improve the campus climate for Jewish students, faculty, and staff,” Drinkwater said.

The Golden Bear Orientation is generally planned a year in advance, which means the university had to make adjustments after its June decision to expand antisemitism education, he told The Fix.

Along with their plans for new students, Drinkwater said the initiative includes a more intensive orientation for resident assistants. The university also is working to “making sure that the leadership of registered student organizations are all in compliance with campus policies and procedures,” he said.

“When students, faculty and staff have more awareness of and cultural competency around antisemitism, Judaism, Jewish life, Jewish history and culture, they’re obviously better positioned to recognize antisemitism when they’re seeing it or experiencing it or perhaps engaging in it themselves,” Drinkwater said.

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He told The Fix a better informed people are “better positioned to try and do something” and “to be receptive to or understanding of Jewish faculty, staff, and students who are saying they are experiencing antisemitism.”

Drinkwater said he believes that “in the same way that all of us play a role in combatting racism or sexism … we all have a role to play in …improving the climate for Jews in America and decreasing antisemitism.”

Berkeley has run its Antisemitism Education Initiative since 2019 in cooperation with campus Jewish organizations, according to its Center for Jewish Studies website.

However, in June, after months of violent and disruptive pro-Palestinian protests both on and off campus, Chancellor Carol Christ announced plans to expand the project.

In a letter to the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Jewish Student Life and Campus Climate, C​​hrist wrote of her “appreciation” for the advocacy work of Professors Ron Hassner and Ethan Katz “in support of new campus programs to provide antisemitism education to larger numbers of students, staff, and faculty.”

Christ said that “the ensuing rise in reports of antisemitic expression, including on our own campus, is deeply disturbing.”

“I fervently wish for there to be peace, safety, and respect for all members of our country’s and campus’s Jewish communities, and for the Israeli and Palestinian peoples,” Christ wrote.

The Fix reached out to Christ, Katz, and Hassner twice by email for comment, but received no responses.

Earlier this year, the university was accused of not doing enough to protect Jewish students on campus in a federal lawsuit; however, the university said it already implemented the “proposed ‘remedies'” mentioned in the case, The Fix reported.

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.

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IMAGE: UC Berkeley Center for Jewish Studies

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