A growing group of UC Berkeley students has been staging a months-long protest campaign demanding that the university bring a suspended Spanish and Portuguese professor back to campus. They’ve shared testimonies highlighting how influential Ivonne del Valle has been both as a mentor and as a leading scholar at a school with few Latinx faculty. "Professor del Valle isn’t just any faculty member, she’s the top expert in colonial studies,” said Emily Chamale, a second year UC Berkeley student, at a protest last month. “The question that haunts me is: If someone as respected as her is going through such things at Berkeley, what might the future be for the rest of us?”
But records obtained by KQED paint a troubling picture of what led to del Valle’s suspension. Over three investigations, which looked into behavior that began in 2018 and continued through 2022, the university found del Valle had repeatedly harassed, stalked and retaliated against Joshua Clover, an English and Comparative Literature professor at UC Davis, and then violated orders not to contact him.
Clover declined to comment on the record.
Student supporters contend del Valle was acting out of desperation, believing that she is actually the victim of harassment and online stalking. They are preparing to disrupt the Cal football game against the University of Southern California in an undisclosed manner on Saturday. [NOTE: The disruption occurred after this article appeared.]
“We want Ivonne back,” said Christián González Reyes, a Ph.D. student studying comparative literature, who is organizing with the campaign. “We’re not going to be silent anymore.”
The supporters say del Valle is beloved at the university, where she is the only first-generation Mexican woman among faculty in the school’s Spanish and Portuguese Department. If del Valle is not reinstated, a group of students plan to stage a hunger strike.
In an interview with KQED, del Valle acknowledged some of the behavior described in the investigative reports, including keying Clover’s car, vandalizing the area outside his apartment door, contacting his friends, posting an image of his partner online and leaving messages outside the home of his mother. Those messages included one that said “I raised a psychopath,” according to the university’s investigative reports. She has also acknowledged in the report calling Clover’s office phone line at least ten times within 90 minutes.
Throughout each official investigation, del Valle maintains that her actions were the result of being hacked, and that she was not receiving the support she needed.
“I did write outside his door, ‘Here lives a pervert.’ I did that. And again, I’m not proud,” del Valle said. “If I had the opportunity to do things differently, I would do them differently.” Del Valle said that she regretted visiting the mother’s home, but disagreed that the message towards Clover’s mother was a threat or that any of her behavior was sexual harassment. She said she had been trying hard to get the attention of anyone who could help her. “I never received help from anybody,” she said.
A UC Berkeley spokesperson, Janet Gilmore, declined to comment on the specifics of the case, citing privacy laws. “This means that the university may not publicly disclose confidential information or correct the record if others choose to share — or misrepresent — information related to a private matter,” Gilmore said.
Gilmore added that faculty misconduct allegations are not unilaterally handled by the administration, and that if the Academic Senate’s Privilege and Tenure Committee determines that it is more likely than not in sexual harassment cases that misconduct occurred, then the committee forwards a disciplinary recommendation, up to and including termination, to the chancellor.
However, termination of a tenured faculty member then requires approval by the UC Board of Regents, Gilmore said...
Full story at https://www.kqed.org/news/11965822/uc-berkeley-students-threaten-hunger-strike-to-reinstate-professor-suspended-for-stalking.
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