Berkeley Suspends Lecturer for Pro-Palestinian Comments

‘Your Free Speech Does Not Apply’: Suspended UC Berkeley Lecturer Speaks Out

Peyrin Kao, a computer science instructor, was disciplined over his discussions of his pro-Palestinian activism in the classroom, raising questions about academic freedom and its limits on campus.

Berkeley Suspends Lecturer for Pro-Palestinian Comments

The University of California, Berkeley, suspended lecturer Peyrin Kao without pay for the spring semester because he made pro-Palestinian political comments during class. Kao, a lecturer in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, participated in a 38-day hunger strike this fall to protest the use of technology in what he called Israel’s genocide in Gaza. He allegedly told students during class that he was undergoing a “starva…

UC Berkeley suspends lecturer for sharing pro-Palestinian views in his classroom

Peyrin Kao, who went on a hunger strike for Gaza, said he believes Cal “is capitulating to the demands of the Trump administration and using me as bait.” The university said it was responding to student complaints.

UC Berkeley suspends lecturer for sharing pro-Palestinian views in his classroom - Open Campus

Just a few months after UC Berkeley said it had released the names of 160 students, faculty and staff mentioned in antisemitism complaints to the Trump administration, the university has suspended one of them for sharing his pro-Palestinian political beliefs with his students. Peyrin Kao, a computer science lecturer whose 38-day hunger strike made him one of the campus’s most high-profile faculty critics of the war in Gaza, said he learned Thurs…