The University of California, Berkeley, agreed Wednesday to rehire a former professor and pay her $60,000 to settle her lawsuit alleging that the school discriminated against her by denying her a job because she's from Israel.
The settlement resolves an August lawsuit by Dr. Yael Nativ, a dance researcher and sociologist, who pointed to statements from UC Berkeley officials indicating that she didn't receive a teaching position because she is Israeli, with one saying the campus was too "hot" following Hamas's terrorist massacre. Even before the settlement, a nine-month investigation by the school's Office for Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination found Nativ "was the victim of discrimination" in violation of the university's anti-discrimination policy.
The settlement also requires UC Berkeley to pay $56,000 in legal fees and for UC Berkeley chancellor Rich Lyons to "personally apologize" to Nativ. It also promises to enforce its existing policies that "do not permit discrimination based upon Israeli national origin or Israeli citizenship."
UC Berkeley is just the latest university to settle a lawsuit alleging anti-Semitic or anti-Israel discrimination, with elite schools like the University of California, Los Angeles, Harvard University, New York University, and Barnard College also entering into settlements. Others, however, are ongoing—the Brandeis Center, which represented Nativ, is also engaged in another lawsuit against UC Berkeley, alleging "longstanding, unchecked spread of anti-Semitism" endangered Jewish students and faculty on campus.
UC Berkeley's settlement wasn't its only move this week to make its campus more accepting of Jewish and Israeli students. On Tuesday, the university announced a six-month suspension of Peyrin Kao, a computer sciences and electrical engineering lecturer who went on a 38-day hunger strike in protest of "the use of tech in Israel's genocide in Gaza." Berkeley executive vice chancellor Benjamin Hermalin recommended the suspension after determining that the anti-Israel advocacy Kao pushed on his students "misused the classroom by distorting the instructional process."
Kao was also included in the 160 names UC Berkeley provided to the Department of Education as part of an anti-Semitism probe.
Nativ's lawsuit, meanwhile, lays out how the atmosphere at UC Berkeley shifted following Hamas's Oct. 7 terror attack. She was first hired by the university in January 2022 to teach a course on intersectional perspectives on contemporary dance in Israel. The course was well received, and both theater department chair Dr. SanSan Kwan and the executive director of Berkeley's Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies, Rebecca Golbert—both of whom helped select the Israeli instructor and fund her course—"expressed their hope that Dr. Nativ would return and teach again" in the 2024-25 academic year, according to Nativ's lawsuit. They reaffirmed that offer in March 2023.
She followed suit and applied in August 2023—and was formally rejected three months later.
"[M]y dept cannot host you for a class next fall," Kwan wrote in a Nov. 18 text message to Nativ included in the lawsuit. "Things are very hot here right now and many of our grad students are angry. I would be putting the dept and you in a terrible position if you taught here."
Golbert allegedly stated that the "decision to reject Dr. Nativ's application was because she is Israeli," according to the lawsuit.
UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said California law prohibits the school from revealing whether Kwan or anyone else would face disciplinary action. He pointed the Washington Free Beacon to Lyons's public statements on the settlement.
"I respect and appreciate Dr. Nativ's decision to settle this case," Lyons's statement read. "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, in her own statement, said she hopes the settlement encourages other universities to "uphold the values of equity, inquiry, and open dialogue."
"Incidents of discrimination of any kind must have no place within environments dedicated to learning and the free exchange of ideas," she added. "It is my hope that this outcome contributes to strengthening these commitments for all scholars and students."
