UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons sought to reassure Republican members of Congress Tuesday that the university has been effectively addressing the threat of campus antisemitism, in a high-stakes hearing that came as U.S. higher education faces an existential crisis.
A year into a tenure that has been rocked by protests, federal budget cuts and a Trump administration crackdown on international students, Lyons testified before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, whose members have been key players in a joint effort by President Donald Trump and the Republican-led Congress to punish universities they say are discriminating against Jewish students. The committee has launched one of multiple federal investigations into the University of California and its members last year accused U.C. Berkeley leadership of allowing “an environment of pervasive antisemitism.”
“Berkeley unequivocally condemns antisemitism,” Lyons told the committee Tuesday, while adding that “we have more work to do.”
He pointed to new efforts such as requiring antisemitism training for all incoming students. And he emphasized the key role UC Berkeley plays in the nation’s economy, saying that the university’s undergraduates “create more funded new businesses than any other university.”
He also defended the right to free speech, saying “if somebody is expressing pro-Palestinian beliefs, that’s not necessarily antisemitism.”
Tuesday’s hearing, at which the heads of the City University of New York and Georgetown University also testified, was part of a broader attack by Trump and his allies on the independence and funding of U.S. colleges and universities. The administration has canceled billions in federal research grants and used the threat of further funding cuts to push some universities to make changes to their curriculum, policies and admissions. On Monday, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump to begin dismantling the Department of Education, which oversees student loans and civil rights in the nation’s schools and universities.
The administration has cited concerns about antisemitism as the reason for many of its moves, including efforts to deport student activists involved in a nationwide wave of protest over the war in Gaza. Since Hamas militants killed more than 1,000 Israeli civilians in an Oct. 7, 2023, attack, the Israeli military’s counterattack has killed more than 55,000 Palestinians, brought mass starvation, destroyed most of the region’s infrastructure and displaced most of its people.
U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg led the committee’s Republican majority in accusing faculty and student groups, unions, centers for the study of the Middle East, DEI programs and foreign funders of fomenting antisemitism on the three campuses.
“The violence, fear, and alienation felt by Jewish students is at its core a result of administrators and their staff lacking the moral clarity to condemn and punish antisemitism,” Walberg said.
Members of the committee’s Democratic minority decried the fact that the Republican leadership had organized nine hearings on campus antisemitism over the past 18 months, while neglecting to convene any on racism, sexism, Islamophobia or other forms of hate plaguing colleges. And they lambasted the Trump administration for conducting mass layoffs at the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which investigates discrimination.
“You can’t claim to be a champion of civil rights while disarming the body meant to enforce them,” said the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Bobby Scott.
Reported hate incidents against both Jews and Muslims have increased in the wake of the attacks, according to advocacy groups and the FBI. But some critics say Republicans are blowing a legitimate issue out of proportion, conflating antisemitism with disagreement with Israeli government policies in order to exert control over universities and silence student dissent.
Ussama Makdisi, a history professor who chairs UC Berkeley’s new program in Palestinian and Arab Studies, came under fire from committee members Tuesday over a post on the social media site X about the Oct. 7 attacks, in one of the tenser moments for Berkeley’s chancellor. Rep. Lisa McClain asked Lyons about the post on Makdisi’s account, which she said read, “I could have been one of those people who broke through on the siege on October 7.”
The since-deleted post — screenshotted by others — appears to be a reposting of an essay by a different author with the headline copied and pasted.
Asked about the meaning of the statement, Lyons, hesitated before saying, “I believe it was a celebration of the terrorist attack on Oct. 7.” But he also said he wanted to separate the phrase from Makdisi, describing him at other points in the hearing as a “fine scholar” who “was awarded [his] position from his colleagues based on academic standards.”
Lyons didn’t face as much heat Tuesday as CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez during the three-hour hearing and appeared mostly poised. He said the university strives to balance protecting community members from discrimination with upholding the right to free speech, and does not hire based on political ideology or forbid the expression of pro-Palestinian beliefs.
Grilled by Rep. Kevin Kiley, a California Republican, about why antisemitism exists at Berkeley, Lyons said it was a reflection of the wider society, adding, “I believe part of it has to do with geopolitical events and a war in Gaza.”
He described how his administration has stepped up enforcement of UC-wide rules banning tent encampments and the blocking of campus entrances after protests engulfed campuses in 2024.
Berkeley, where national student group Students for Justice in Palestine was founded in the 1990s, saw students camp out in Sproul Plaza and block Sather Gate in the spring of 2024 to protest Israel’s actions. Campus police did not break up the largely peaceful demonstrations, and the university largely avoided the chaotic scenes seen on other campuses like UCLA, where counterprotestors violently attacked a pro-Palestinian encampment in the middle of the night.
In February 2024, however, hundreds of protestors disrupted a speech by a pro-Israel speaker at Zellerbach Hall, breaking down doors and a window in an incident some Jewish students said made them feel unsafe and university officials called “an attack on the fundamental values of the university.”
Some have said the university hasn’t done enough to protect Jewish students. They include law professor Steven Solomon, who in a February commentary in the Wall Street Journal said some of his students were disturbed by a panel discussion held on campus in which one speaker questioned whether Israeli women had been systematically sexually assaulted on Oct. 7. He called on the Trump administration to investigate the campus.
More than 80 other Jewish faculty and staff, however, submitted a joint letter to the committee Monday praising the university’s work to stamp out antisemitism. During protests over the war in Gaza, “teaching and research were not hindered, protests were confined, and the UC Berkeley administration made significant and impactful efforts to ensure that Jewish students, faculty and staff were safe,” the letter reads. “While we don’t always agree with the administration’s decisions, it is abundantly clear to us that, overall, the administration has a long-standing commitment to combat antisemitism.”
Ken Goldberg, an engineering professor who signed the letter, said he and others wanted to speak up for the “silent majority” who believed that while antisemitism exists at Berkeley, incidents are not rampant and should not be used to curtail student speech.
“Demonstrations or dissent is at the core of Berkeley’s ‘question authority’ mentality,” Goldberg told Berkeleyside. “We welcome that. We would be more concerned if the students weren’t protesting.”
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