UC Berkeley Apologizes to Liberal Pro-Israel Oakland City Councilman

The University of California at Berkeley has apologized to a liberal Oakland City Councilman whose appearance at the school was canceled when woke students complained to their professor that he is pro-Israel.

The apology from the University is a welcome and unusual defense of free speech in an era when University administrators regularly cave to the demands of woke student mobs. And it is all the more surprising that it occurred at Berkeley, which apparently has a very toxic environment for Jewish students. As the California Globe reported, Berkeley last month was sued by Jewish groups and Jewish students over the “longstanding, unchecked spread of anti-Semitism.”

The incident with Democratic Councilman Dan Kalb, who is Jewish, occurred in mid-November, but only came to light this month in an article by the Jewish Journal of Northern California.

Kalb, a Berkeley alumnus, has been a councilman since 2013. He has a long record of support for environmental causes and was scheduled to speak before an undergraduate course called Environmental Problem Solving on November 21. He had talked to the same class several times in recent years. Kalb worked for the Sierra Club before becoming a councilman and is a longtime advocate for clean energy and fighting climate change.

So Kalb sounds like an ideal person to address the class. But students, perhaps looking for a controversy and something to be outraged about, combed through Kalb’s social media and discovered he is an outspoken supporter of Israel.

This in the students estimation makes him unfit to talk about environmental issues. This is known as blacklisting, a tactic which in decades past liberals opposed when it was done during the MCarthy era.

The irate students composed a long and grandiloquent letter to Kalb, accusing him of being an accessory to all sorts of supposed crimes by Israel but making no mention of the terrorist atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7. The students expressed “growing concern” about his scheduled appearance because of his promotion of “pro-Israel propaganda.” They gave the letter to course instructor Kurt Spreyer, an adjunct professor.

The students wrote, “As an Oakland City Council member with a platform advocating for environmental and social justice, affordable housing, and universal access to health care, among other things, it is utterly disappointing and hypocritical for someone of your esteem to be in support of the apartheid state of Israel and the current and ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”

Signed by 30 students the letter also blasted Kalb for his “active role in retweeting and spreading pro-Israeli propaganda, which often equates pro-Palestinian voices as ‘anti-Semitic.’”

The day before Kalb’s scheduled appearance Spreyer gave the Councilman the letter and said it was better if he not appear because students might disrupt his talk.

Kalb could not be reached for comment. But he told the Jewish News of Northern California that the letter was “crazy” and that he is “a passionate supporter of Israel’s right to exist.”

“I don’t know if that [disruption] would have happened or not, but he was worried about that,” Kalb said. “And he didn’t want to invite that. So he felt it would be best if I didn’t come this year. He felt very bad and said he was sorry. And that was that.”

University of California at Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof told the California Globe that the cancellation of Kalb was deplorable and the school is taking steps to ensure that mob rule does not prevail in the future.

“What happened in this class is not consistent with the university’s values, particularly because the class discussion had nothing to do with the war between Israel and Hamas,” he emailed. “Instructors are not supposed to rescind invitations for classroom speakers based on student disagreement with the speakers views.”

Mogulof said Berkeley Provost Benjamin Hermalin, who first learned of the incident on December 12,  wrote Kalb to “express our dismay about what happened and to assure him that the leadership of the Rausser College of Natural Resources has reviewed the matter with the instructor to ensure nothing like this will happen again.”

Additionally, Hermalin will “be sending a message to every dean and department chair to remind them of Berkeley’s support for an open exchange of ideas, and our rejection of political litmus tests when it comes to who can speak in our classes. The college leadership also intends to use what happened as an opportunity to engage the community in a discussion about the importance of diversity of perspective and the dangers of censorship of any sort.”

Wow. That is a remarkably strong defense of free speech and against mob rule.

But Glenn Ricketts, spokesman for the academic freedom group the National Association of Scholars, told the California Globe that he does not think Berkeley’s actions portend a change in the intolerant atmosphere on campuses, where craven administrators cave to the demands of woke students.

“I can’t see a trend yet, but one can hope,” he emailed. “I think [the apology] is the least they can do, indeed a requirement of basic decency.  That the school’s action should be seen as extraordinary or singular indicates how far down the slope we’ve descended.”