Excerpt from Interview with Incoming UC-Berkeley Chancellor Richard Lyons, KQED, 8-28-24:
Activism is part of the Berkeley brand. Do you remember that being part of the culture when you were a student?
Rich Lyons: And it’s still here. So we sometimes use the phrase ‘Question the status quo,’ right? This mindset — there’s got to be a better way to do this. Oh, I love people who think that way; I really do. I thrive on that.
Conjure in your mind the president of a great private university in this country. I won’t specify anyone, but just imagine one that you’re very familiar with. And then imagine me as the president of that university standing up and saying, ‘This university, we’re all about questioning the status quo.’ Ain’t going to happen. It doesn’t mean their scholars aren’t questioning the status quo. But it’s not where they come from. It’s not their history. It’s sort of like, are you ready to say ‘question the status quo’ and stand by it? So Berkeley still says that.
Activism is probably the biggest issue on college campuses right now. How are you thinking about that as this new school year, the first of your tenure as chancellor, begins?
One of the things that’s distinguishing what we’re going through right now is if you thought about the Free Speech Movement or anti-Vietnam, a lot of those were sort of students versus the administration. Here, it’s students opposing students. It’s faculty opposing faculty. It’s staff opposing staff. And we’re up against that in society. The idea that being in Berkeley is a reflection of society.
If we think about how do we manage that? There’s actually an opportunity to lead. How do we get people talking to each other more and understanding a little bit better and empathizing a little bit more across these deep divisions, these identity divisions in many cases?
So when people ask me, ‘What are you going to do if X happens?’ it’s sort of like, OK, if X happens, are we talking about a Berkeley student? Or is X driven by an unaffiliated person who’s on the Berkeley campus? That’s a consideration. Is it designed to be intimidating and harassing? Or is it not? There are limits to free speech in this country. Inciting lawlessness is not OK under the First Amendment.
The way I think about it is there are hundreds of places on the Berkeley campus and hundreds of ways for our students to express their free speech rights. We don’t just condone that; we encourage it. So if a student is standing in front of the main gate on campus and is professing views, it’s sort of like, good on you. If they then block an opening, then the idea is you’ve just stepped into civil disobedience, which is a different thing.
One of the criticisms about the way UCLA handled its protests was that it didn’t equally protect both Jewish and pro-Palestinian students. How do you work to feel that both of those student communities feel safe on a campus like UC Berkeley?
We actually have a positive obligation under what’s called Title IX of the Civil Rights Act to make sure that students are given full access to all the educational opportunities without harassment, without intimidation. And at the same time, we have a positive obligation to allow for free speech under the First Amendment.
So I think part of it is how do we do the best that we can in a content-neutral way? That’s the key idea here. If somebody says, we’re going to allow that to happen because it feels like it’s more likely to be on the right side of history, it’s like, No! We’re not going to do that anymore. I’m moving this university in the direction of institutional neutrality.
Full interview at https://www.kqed.org/news/12002011/new-uc-berkeley-chancellor-sees-opportunity-as-new-semester-of-campus-activism-kicks-off.
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