UC Berkeley opens probe into law professor over confrontation with anti-Israel student
UC Berkeley law professor Catherine Fisk attempts to get law student Malak Afaneh to leave the home Fisk shares with her husband, Berkeley law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, April 9, 2024. Image by Screenshot via Instagram
This story originally appeared in the J. the Jewish News of Northern California, and was reprinted here with permission.
UC Berkeley has opened a Title IX civil rights investigation after an April 9 confrontation between a professor and a Muslim law student at the professor’s home, the Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations announced Tuesday.
The investigation follows a complaint that Malak Afaneh, who is active in pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests at Cal, filed with the university’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination after the incident. The office focuses on compliance with policies related to sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, disability, religion and other federally protected categories.
On April 9, Afaneh stood up with a wireless microphone she brought and began making a speech about the war in Gaza and the holiday of Ramadan at the home of law professor Catherine Fisk and law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky. In a video that went viral online, Fisk is seen trying to grab Afaneh’s microphone and cell phone and wrapping her arm around Afaneh’s shoulder while repeatedly telling her to leave.
Fisk and Chemerinsky were hosting an invitation-only dinner for third-year law students in their backyard. Afaneh, a graduating law student, was a guest.
The incident has sparked controversy and raised concerns about freedom of speech, discrimination and campus tensions. On April 10, Afaneh released a statement on Instagram along with a clip of the viral video alleging that she had been attacked. She alleged that Fisk had pulled on her neck, chest, shirt and hijab and that Fisk had attempted to remove her not only for her pro-Palestinian beliefs, but because she is Muslim.
“I was not attacked solely for speaking out about the genocide of the Palestinian people…I was attacked because I, as a visibly Muslim, hijab wearing, kuffiyeh repping, Arabic speaking, woman was deemed as a threat that deserved being traumatized and assaulted simply for carrying the identities I do,” she wrote. “I was attacked because we live in a world where Zionist administration and the world as a whole views Palestinian bodies as constructed to die, while white ones are expected to live.”
However, another, longer video revealed more nuance about the incident. Toward the end of the nearly three-minute video, Fisk tells Afaneh, “We agree with you about what’s going on in Palestine.”
In an email sent to J. on Tuesday, Chemerinsky said that Cal’s investigation into Afaneh’s complaint is a standard response. Chemerinsky, who is Jewish, also said that in the days leading up to her protest, Afaneh was involved in posting a cartoon, widely considered to evoke an antisemitic blood libel, in public areas on campus and that he and Fisk had asked Afaneh to leave many times.
“It is disturbing that the student who posted a blatantly antisemitic flyer and then deliberately disrupted a dinner party at my home, and refused to cease the disruption or leave when asked repeatedly to do so, then had the audacity to file a complaint with the campus that she was mistreated. The campus responded, as its routine, by saying it would investigate the complaint. It is no more than that. By campus policy such investigations are confidential,” Chemerinsky said in his email that he also copied to Fisk.
The investigation was reported earlier by NBC News, which published an excerpt purportedly taken from the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination’s response to Afaneh.
“It was reported that on April 9, 2024, during a dinner for UC Berkeley Law School students, held at Respondent’s off-campus residence, Respondent physically grabbed you, attempted to forcibly take your cell phone and microphone from your hand, and asked you to leave a University event when you began to speak in support of Palestine and about Ramadan,” the office wrote, according to NBC.
Afaneh is co-president of Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine, one of the groups responsible for high-profile anti-Israel demonstrations on campus including a monthslong blockade of the main section of UC Berkeley’s Sather Gate. She is also a law clerk at CAIR and one of the leaders of the current encampment protest at the university.
Fisk and Afaneh did not immediately respond to requests for comment. University spokesperson Dan Mogulof declined to comment, citing personnel issues that the university cannot legally discuss.
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