UC Berkeley’s law school dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, and his wife, law professor Catherine Fisk, faced a bizarre scene this week when third-year students invited into their home for a dinner held a disruptive protest and refused to leave. The students accused Fisk of assault after she tried to pull a microphone from the hands of Malak Afaneh, leader of Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine.
Afaneh has been featured by Berkeley on its website discussing how “As a proud Muslim immigrant, a first gen, low income student, and a survivor, I know exactly what it feels like to not have anyone in your corner.” She added:
“As leaders at Berkeley Law, we have the privilege of being in spaces where we can gain access surrounding the U.S. legal system, information that is gatekept and withheld from the very communities that often need it the most.”
It appears that one of those privileged spaces was the Dean’s home. Chemerinsky was warned that protests might be held at his home. Moreover, flyers appeared around campus opposing the dinners.
Chemerinsky discussed this threat in a statement to the school:
“The students responsible for this had the leaders of our student government tell me that if we did not cancel the dinners, they would protest at them. I was sad to hear this, but made clear that we would not be intimidated and that the dinners would go forward for those who wanted to attend. I said that I assumed that any protest would not be disruptive.”
The Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine depicted Dean Chemerinsky in a cartoon with a bloody knife and fork, which were denounced as anti-Semitic and raised images of the ancient blood libel against Jews.
Others attacks Chemerinsky as effectively a Zionist operative.
Once at the dinner, Afaneh and others began their protest. She started by saying “as-salamu alaykum” — or peace and blessings to you — when Fisk took hold of her and tried to take away her microphone.
Fisk teaches civil rights and civil liberties at Berkeley.
An Instagram post by the two student groups said that Fisk was guilty of “violently assaulting” Afaneh. In the video, there is physical contact but it is not violent. It is reminiscent of the recent controversy involving Tulane Professor and former CNN CEO Walter Issacson who was accused of assault in pushing a disruptive protester out of an event.
There are already petitions to seek punishment for the “assault.” One petition states:
“On the last day of Ramadan, UC Berkeley Law Professor Catherine Fisk, and Dean Chemerinsky’s wife, assaulted a Palestinian Muslim hijabi law student that was exercising her First Amendment rights to draw attention to UC complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian people. Fisk and Chemerinsky would rather resort to violently assaulting one of their students than face the truth of their support for genocide.”
The suggestion is that you have a First Amendment right to enter a private residence, stage a loud protest, refuse to leave, and prevent others from associating.
Technically there was physical contact but no police complaint has been filed. Even under torts, there is a notion of molliter manus imposuit or “he gently laid hands upon.” The doctrine is used as a defense for using limited, reasonable force to keep the peace or respond to trespass to land or chattel.
Both Fisk and Chemerinsky can be heard saying that this is their home and that the protest must stop. Evently Afaneh and ten other students left the dinner.
In a statement Wednesday, Chemerinsky wrote that
“The dinner, which was meant to celebrate graduating students, was obviously disrupted and disturbed. . I am enormously sad that we have students who are so rude as to come into my home, in my backyard, and use this social occasion for their political agenda.”
The problem is that these students have been told for years that deplatforming and disrupting events are forms of free speech. This has been an issue of contention with some academics who believe that free speech includes the right to silence others. Student newspapers have declared opposing speech to be outside of the protections of free speech. Academics and deans have said that there is no free speech protection for offensive or “disingenuous” speech. CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek showed how far this trend has gone. When conservative law professor Josh Blackman was stopped from speaking about “the importance of free speech,” Bilek insisted that disrupting the speech on free speech was free speech. (Bilek later cancelled herself and resigned after she made a single analogy to acting like a “slaveholder” as a self-criticism for failing to achieve equity and reparations for black faculty and students).
Berkeley has lost cases in court over its failure to protect free speech.
Many faculty and deans remained quiet for years as conservatives, libertarians, and dissenters were cancelled on campus or deplatformed. It is only recently that some have become openly alarmed over the anti-free speech movement that they have fostered either directly or through their silence.
In this case, the students felt justified to stop a dinner event in a private home. They also showed little fear that they would face any repercussions for their actions.
Ironically, I raise this very hypothetical in my torts classes each year. I also invite my students to my house for dinners. When we get to trespass, I present the hypothetical of what would occur if some of them refused to leave and what my options might be. The Chemerinsky home just became that very hypothetical.
For many of us, the lack of civility and respect by the students is disturbing but hardly surprising. There are many students who feel enabled for years by administrators and faculty at schools like Berkeley.
Dean Chemerinsky can be criticized for fueling this rage by denouncing conservative justices as “partisan hacks” simply because he disagrees with their jurisprudential views. Nevertheless, Chemerinsky has had a long and widely respected career as a scholar and administrator.
Clearly, neither Chemerinsky nor Professor Fisk deserved this disruption or the lack of respect. They refused to yield to the threats over this dinner and I respect them for that. Chemerinsky has tried to navigate the tensions on campus while supporting free speech rights. Chemerinsky and Fisk open their home to hold these dinners and most students clearly value and respect their gracious hospitality.
I also would not fault the Dean for declining to pursue discipline over the incident since this occurred in a private residence. However, I take a harsher view of disruptions of classes and public events. The protesters can demonstrate outside of a room or a hall to express their opposition to a speaker. What they cannot do is prevent others from speaking or hearing opposing views. Those responsible for such disruptions should be suspended or, for repeat offenders, expelled.
Regrettably, the scene that unfolded at the home of Dean Chemerinsky will be viewed by many as a triumph rather than an embarrassment for their cause. Disruption has become the touchstone of protests in higher education. At the same time, schools like UCLA have paid “activists-in-residence” or now bestow degrees in activism.
We now have a culture of disruption that has been consistently fostered by academics and administrators on our campuses. When asked “why the home of a dean?,” these students would likely shrug and answer “why not?”
In that sense, this is the ultimate example of the chickens literally coming home to roost. These students have been enabled for years into believing that such acts of disruption are commendable and that others must yield in the cancellation of events. For weeks, they demanded that these dinners be halted despite other students wanting to attend. In that sense, the appearance in an actual home is alarming, but hardly unexpected in our current environment.
For students such as Afaneh, it is just part of “the privilege of being in spaces” to continue one’s activism.
Get invited to dinner in someone’s home and then behave like a wanker. Classy.
Well, this is what leftists do. They disrupt events. They trash things. They are rude and crude.
They are ugly people.
I saw a bumper sticker one time that read: FORGET KARMA. TRY GOOD MANNERS.
Pretty much sums it up. I wish my mother would be put in charge of the world for a month.
The Left ruins everything it touches, Berkeley Law(less) edition.
One way the Left ruins things is by politicizing everything. This is one example: politicizing a dinner with the dean for graduating 3L’s, which should be an occasion for celebration, reflection, and fun and interesting discussions. All that ruined by a mindset in which every aspect of life is political and an occasion for protest. What corroded souls these students must have.
OldManFromKS,
They are zealots. It is all about the cause.
That’s what you get when you join a narcissistic death cult.
The left poses as victims until it has enough power to become the bully. Time to stop genuflecting mindlessly to faux-victimhood.
These institutions seed the ground with a perversion of free speech now they too must eat the harvest.
i congratulate these “students”! they learned well from their academic mentors!! makes the anti-war protesters from my college days look like pikers!! the ironic thing is….in the late 60s-early 70s we had the berekely FREE SPEECH movement….i suspect many behind that movement are the academics who have created this anti-FREE SPEEECH environment
Seems to me like the students achieved exactly what they wanted. They get tons of publicity; after the stunt they get to use incendiary, hyperbolic, emotion laden language which serves to inflame the passions of left wing trash; after all is said and done they suffer no real adverse consequences.
While it is true left wing academics have destroyed the grading system, if grades still meant anything these students would deserve an A+ grade in their activism class. Heck, they’re probably now top potential recruits at white shoe law firms.
Several years ago, if I remember correctly, the usual suspects occupied a space in or near the office of the Ohio State University President. After the protest had gone on for several hours, an OSU official spoke with the students and told them that they should leave, and that if they remained, they would be (a) arrested, and then (b) expelled from the university. The students left. It can be done. All it takes is a soupcon of will.
I realize he’s a colleague of yours and all, Professor, but when the Left eats its own I cannot help but enjoy the spectacle, and hope it continues. Chemerinsky has contributed to this state of affairs, and by the looks of it will do nothing to stop it except whine. The fact that he won’t protect his own home from the brats or prosecute them for the invasion demonstrates that he is still complicit and has learned nothing. Bon appetit!
Sometimes it seems that there simply isn’t enough popcorn available to enjoy watching the “blue vs blue”
Harassment, threats and Trespassing aren’t peaceful protest. They should ALL BE ARRESTED and Punished as far as possible.
If students, they should be EXPELLED! You want to protest…go to a park and speak your case.
Also it is time to end federal aid and federal student loans….too much of the money is being used to HARM AMERICA!
Perfect candidates (wrong era) for Charles Manson’s “Family.” Nothing says idiotic mindless lemmings like “protesters” who sympathize with terrorists who behead and mercilessly rape victims and torture parents and children with no regard fir human life.,
What serious student, even if they had a legitimate cause, has such time outside of class? They act with impunity because they live in a warped microcosm called Berkeley (and the privileged university environment).
They are thoughtlessly being played by terrorist propagandists.
Were these disruptive pro-palestine students admitted to our country by Joe Biden’s administration, or after Joe Biden undid all of Trump’s efforts to reduce and mitigate illegal entry? If so, there’s so much more to the “Chickens coming home to roost” sense of “justice”!
Read this, from 2022, for one reason why Chemerinsky had it coming.
https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/351854/berkeley-develops-jewish-free-zones/
OK, I am going back to bed now. See you all in a few hours.
Do I feel bad for them? Not one bit…because these disruptive, rude, loudmouth entitled young people are exactly what the left has produced. Now they want to put this animal back in its cage? Well, good luck on that one. Sadly what is going to happen is that the pendulum is going to swing way back over to the other side, we will have civil unrest (well, already do) and then we will end up with martial law to squelch these POS. All part of the plan- well played, lefties, well played.
“As a proud Muslim immigrant, a first gen, low income student, and a survivor, I know exactly what it feels like to not have anyone in your corner.”
Why do they want us to give up what they don’t have?
Is that (giving it up) going to ‘equalize the World?
Is this socio-guerrilla warfare working (taking the enemy’s weapons and using them against them),
or creating a (Their) hypocrisy for all to see?
Old ‘traditions’ are passé, is this the new tradition (generate chaos and confusion) to sort/discuss thing out?
Henry Kissinger died last year (November 29, 2023) Did ‘Detente’ die with him?
Unlimited War, Tactical Nukes, Social & Economic Inequity and Disparity rampant, a Government disconnected from reality and it’s People.
Four more years of Joe Biden, is this what you/they really want?
Have they No-Clue what this Country is capable of? They have no clue that the capability (success) rest within Them.
America has become a Clueless World. President Donald Trump is trying to put some (not all) of that back into focus.
Let’s ‘Make America Great Again’ was a good start, but so many want to tear it apart including the Government itself.
It’s not perfect but it better than most. We are in the shadow of an Eclipse (The Shadow State) an inverse universe, wherein
Out of Many – Me Me Me …
“Clearly, neither Chemerinsky nor Professor Fisk deserved this disruption or the lack of respect. ”
Nonsense! They are getting a dose of their own medicine. The other term for that is called, “JUSTICE.”
You can’t say on one hand, “Clearly, neither Chemerinsky nor Professor Fisk deserved this disruption or the lack of respect, ” and in the same article:
“We now have a culture of disruption that has been consistently fostered by academics and administrators on our campuses. When asked “why the home of a dean?,” these students would likely shrug and answer “why not?” In that sense, this is the ultimate example of the chickens literally coming home to roost.”
“Chickens coming home to roost” is another term for JUSTICE.
See Perillus and Phalaris.
“Clearly, neither Chemerinsky nor Professor Fisk deserved this disruption or the lack of respect.”
On the contrary, they richly deserved this, and worse. As you sow, so shall you reap.
UC Berkeley???
Then they had it coming. Nuff said.
Karma! Is like hitting a golf ball inside a tiled bathroom, it WILL find you! Lol
And as the leftards are eaten by their own, all I can do is SMDH. Who could have predicted this? Anyone with an IQ above moron.
Just as Biden’s appeasement of Iran has led to more and more demands and assaults, appeasement of this kind of behavior, especially with law students, will lead to more and more disrespect, intolerance, attacks, and demands. University administrators, government officials, and corporate executives need to stop appeasing and enforce rules, rights, and responsibilities.
The stink of chickens come home to roost.
Are we sure this wasn’t a homework assignment?
Ha! Good one.