UC Berkeley and Pomona College have reached settlements with Jewish civil rights groups to resolve complaints of antisemitism on their campuses, in part related to pro-Palestinian protests.
UC Berkeley will pay $60,000 to an instructor after a lawsuit alleged she was denied an opportunity to teach at the campus because she was Israeli. Berkeley also agreed to invite the instructor, Yael Nativ, who is a sociologist and dance researcher, to teach in a future semester.
Nativ was a visiting professor at Berkeley in the 2022 spring semester, teaching a course in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies. She later applied to teach the course again during the 2024-25 academic year, but her application was rejected in late 2023.
At the time, tensions were rising on the campus following the Hamas attack on Israel a few weeks before and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza. According to a lawsuit, Nativ said the department chair told her that “grad students are angry,” and hiring her would put the department “in a terrible position.”
Nativ alleged she was rejected because of her Israeli nationality, and an internal college investigation found that discrimination had occurred, according to UC Berkeley.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law sued the campus earlier this year in California Superior Court, saying that Berkeley had not remedied the situation despite determining that Nativ had been the victim of discrimination.
Berkeley on Wednesday publicly acknowledged it violated its own policy against discrimination.
“I respect and appreciate Dr. Nativ’s decision to settle this case,” UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons said in a statement. “She is owed the apology I will provide on behalf of our campus. We look forward to welcoming Dr. Nativ back to Berkeley to teach again.”
Nativ said in her own statement that “incidents of discrimination of any kind must have no place within environments dedicated to learning and the free exchange of ideas.”
“It is my hope that this outcome contributes to strengthening these commitments for all scholars and students,” she added.
Separately, Pomona College reached its own settlement, also involving the Brandeis Center. The center, along with the Anti-Defamation League, filed a complaint last year with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights alleging that Jewish students had been harassed by pro-Palestinian protesters, who at the time set up an encampment on the campus as they urged the college to divest from financial ties to Israel.
As part of the nonmonetary settlement, the college plans to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism when determining whether an incident is antisemitic. That definition allows for some criticisms of Israel to be equated with antisemitism and has been contested by some civil rights groups that say it is too vague.
Pomona will also hire a new civil rights coordinator, establish a task force focused on Jewish life and antisemitism, and mandate additional training for all students and staff.
“Antisemitism has persisted for thousands of years, and this settlement is not a one-size-fits-all toolkit. It’ll be up to our community to put it in place—and to live it,” Pomona College President Gabi Starr said in a statement.
—Michael Burke
