The University of California, Berkeley promised a criminal investigation on Friday into an antisemitic mob threatening students after its initial response to the incident received intense backlash.
Dan Mogulof, university assistant vice chancellor for executive communications, told the Washington Examiner in a statement that members of senior leadership met with Jewish students, staff, and faculty, where they were assured a criminal investigation was launched into the Monday night pro-Palestinian mob.
“We will hold accountable those responsible for crimes or harassment. We have also activated the Student Code of Conduct process and will hold accountable any students or student organizations who are found to have violated the code,” Mogulof said. “Per the Chancellor’s instructions we are also turning our attention to doing what we must so that nothing like Monday night ever happens again. This will include a comprehensive evaluation of our security planning and protocols.”
A mob of pro-Palestinian protesters on Monday reportedly surrounded an auditorium, broke down doors, and harassed Jewish students there to hear an Israel Defense Forces reservist speak.
According to the university, roughly 200 protesters entered the building, ultimately forcing the evacuation of the speaker and audience members.
Protesters appear to have overrun the “ample number of police officers” provided for the event “given the size of the crowd and the threat of violence,” a note from administrators to the university community said.
University Chancellor Carol Christ and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Benjamin Hermalin sent the message to the school community the day after the incident , never mentioning antisemitism or Jewish people but talking about “upholding our values.”
In the note from the university, the administrators wrote of “great sadness, concern, and dismay in the wake of an incident on our campus” that “violated not only our rules, but also some of our most fundamental values.”
“We want to express our deep remorse and sympathy to those students and members of the public who were in the building, fearing for their safety,” the note said.
Critics quickly slammed the school for not calling out exactly what happened.
“UC Berkeley’s response to the recent protest turned mob was disheartening. The avoidance of mentioning the antisemitism that was running rampant in the chaos is a testament to the erosion of moral clarity on campuses,” Dr. Benjamin Ginsberg, research fellow at the Independent Institute, told the Washington Examiner. “If universities continue to have selective silence rather than address the true issue, they will not only embolden those involved but continue to show us that universities are no longer capable of governing themselves.”
Ginsberg, author of The New American Anti-Semitism: The Left, the Right, and the Jews, said antisemitism is increasingly prevalent among progressives.
“What people are not talking about is the fact that the most virulent form of anti-Semitism today is the result of toxic identity politics and anti-Israeli sentiment coming from today’s political Left, which is what we are seeing on college campuses across the country,” Ginsberg said.
Mogulof said the school received its first verified reports of antisemitic slurs being used at the event after Christ’s and Hermalin’s message was published.
“This, too, is intolerable, and in addition to our condemnation of such speech, we are also marshaling our educational resources to address the ignorance that is so often at the heart of bias, prejudice, and hatred,” Mogulof said.
“What happened on Monday night has no recent precedent on campus, and we understand that we are now in new territory that demands changes in how we operate in support of student safety and well-being and their right to hear and express any perspectives or beliefs they wish,” he continued.
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According to Jewish Insider, during a Wednesday discussion, Mogulof failed to mention antisemitism, but rather spoke about adding a seminar on “the importance of diversity and perspective and civic discourse and freedom of speech.”
By Thursday, Mogulof admitted the mob was “informed by antisemitism, but that’s different than saying that everybody there was motivated by that or engaged in that.”
