Free Republic

At least three dozen more international students and recent alumni of pristine California universities have had their visas revoked by the Trump administration as it continues to zero in on anti-Israel protesters. Stanford University and several colleges part of the University of California system all confirmed to NBC News members of their school communities were caught up in the ongoing crackdown that began last month with the high-profile detainment of Columbia University alum and activist Mahmoud Khalil. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last month he’s pulled back 300 visas from foreign students, claiming they should be kicked out of...

A poll co-sponsored by the left-leaning Los Angeles Times props up failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris as a front-runner for the 2026 California gubernatorial race. The poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies shows Vice President Kamala Harris may benefit from some name recognition in a potentially crowded field, and has the support of many Democrat voters in the state. Current Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) cannot seek reelection because of term limits.

Independent challenger Nathan Hochman is destroying incumbent, George Soros-backed George Gascón in the race for Los Angeles County District Attorney, leading by 30 points with less than four weeks to before Election Day. A Los Angeles Times/University of California Berkeley poll of likely voters this week showed that 51% would vote for Hochman, while only 21% would choose Gascon. The percentage of undecided voters, 28%, cannot make up the gap. Gascón ousted incumbent Jackie Lacey, the first black woman to hold the job, in 2020 — thanks to the endorsements of Democrats like Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Black Lives Matter...

Pro-Palestinian activists took credit for a felony arson attack outside of UC Berkeley’s Koshland Hall on Thursday. Details about the fire were scarce on Friday. But it is at least the second case of arson at Cal that pro-Palestinian activists have claimed responsibility for this month. A UC Berkeley police vehicle was set on fire on June 1. On Thursday morning, an anonymous “student intifada” post took credit for the latest incident. “UCLA students were attacked last night so we retaliated with a firebomb on UCB campus,” the post said. “We unloaded a firebomb on the side of a campus...

Pro-Palestinian protesters reportedly firebombed “the side of a building” on the University of California Berkeley (UCB) campus and claimed that students had been “attacked” on another campus. In a post on Instagram on Thursday, Palestine Action in the United States shared a post from an anonymous user who claimed responsibility for firebombing the side of Koshland Hall, a building at UCB that houses “labs from the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology.”

UC Berkeley's Saturday morning graduation ceremony was punctuated by the chanting of hundreds of pro-Palestine student protesters whose demonstration caused the event to be paused and delayed several times.

As Columbia University President Dr. Nemat "Minouche" Shafik faces scrutiny from ongoing campus protests over Israel’s war with Hamas, a more than 20-year-old video is getting renewed attention for remarks on the causes of terrorism. The video, filmed just two months after 9/11, shows Shafik – who was then vice president at the World Bank – discussing the economic roots of terrorism with UC Berkeley’s Harry Kreisler on the program, "Conversations with History." Shafik argued that although terrorism has sprung up in "fairly rich and open societies," its most fertile ground is in countries beset by "economic stagnation and political...

Anti-Israel activists at the University of California, Berkeley have been circulating a video they say shows Berkeley Law professor Catherine Fisk “assaulting” a student. Malak Afaneh, co-president of Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine, has claimed that Fisk assaulted her during a dinner Fisk hosted on April 9 at her private residence, which she shares with her husband, Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. In a video apparently filmed by a fellow student during the dinner, which Fisk and Chemerinsky hosted for graduating students, Afaneh is standing on the steps of their home, wearing a “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” T-shirt,...

Concerned parents calling themselves SafeBears have raised $40,000 to pay for security guards or “safety ambassadors” to patrol the UC Berkeley campus area for a few weeks in early March. UC Berkeley may be one of America’s most prestigious schools, but its location in the California Bay Area has parents and students both wary of safety on campus. A group called SafeBears, that touts itself as comprising “1,300+ Cal parents and community allies working to improve safety for UC Berkeley students,” has worked to solve the problem themselves, hoping their prototypical program of patrols around campus will inspire the college...

Stacey Zolt Hara was in her office in downtown San Francisco when a text from her 16-year-old daughter arrived: “I’m scared,” she wrote. Her classmates at Berkeley High School were preparing to leave their desks and file into the halls, part of a planned “walkout” to protest Israel. Like many Jewish students, she didn’t want to participate. It was October 18, 11 days after the Hamas invasion of southern Israel. Zolt Hara told her daughter to wait in her classroom. She was trying to project calm. A public-relations executive, Zolt Hara had moved her family from Chicago to Berkeley six...

"Skeletonized" human remains were discovered in a years-long unoccupied building at UC Berkeley’s Clark Kerr Campus earlier this week, school officials announced. University police were notified of the remains on Tuesday, Jan. 10, a UCPD statement from the school’s communications department said. The cause of death is still undetermined, and school officials didn’t tell SFGATE which building the remains were found, how they were discovered, and how long the building has been unoccupied for.

Two months ago, as the school year began, nine affinity groups at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, adopted a bylaw banning speakers who support Israel. The bylaw was promulgated by a Berkeley front group for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel, the movement described by the Anti-Defamation League as “an international campaign aimed at delegitimizing and pressuring Israel, through the… isolation of Israel, Israeli individuals, Israeli institutions, and, increasingly, Jews…” that is recognized as “a manifestion of antisemitism” by the U.S. State Department. When the organizations, which include the Women of Berkeley Law, the Asian Pacific...

Nine different law student groups at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Law have begun this new academic year by amending bylaws to ensure that they will never invite any speakers who support Israel or Zionism. In America, more and more college campuses, heavily influenced by Muslim students, are trying to become “Israel-free zones,” free of the taint of what virulent anti-Semites like Congressmuslim Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), slander as an “apartheid state.” Jewish Journal – Kenneth L. Marcus (h/t Mary C) If it wasn’t so frightening, one might be able to recognize the irony in the sight of...

Mask Up, Berkeley StudentsI was trying to avoid writing more stuff on masks, but this is unbelievable. UC Berkeley, that bastion of California higher education, is now requiring masks -both indoors and outdoors, if one is not vaccinated against… influenza! And, as a virologist and vaccinologist, the use of the slang “flu” makes me cringe. There are no “flu” vaccines. There are a variety of vaccines for reducing Influenza A and Influenza B virus infection and disease. None of them work particularly well. And just as with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the vast majority of deaths from Influenza A and B...

Pro-mask zealots have caused incalculable damage to society over the past two and a half years. It spans from their denial of evidence that masking does not work to forcing toddlers to mask in many parts of the country. But many have assumed that masking would be a temporary intervention, endlessly asking the inevitable question, “Why is it so hard to wear a mask?” Recent news out of UC Berkeley shows exactly why so many people have pointed out how ineffective universal masking has been. Because “experts” have lied to the public about the effectiveness of masks for so long,...

An off-campus co-op for students at the University of California, Berkeley named the 'Person of Color Theme House' has banned white guests from entering common areas of the house. A list of house rules revealed that occupants were told 'many POC moved here to be able to avoid white violence and presence, so respect their decision of avoidance if you bring white guests.' While the student house aims to have an 'inclusive' environment, the rules specifically state 'white guests are not allowed in common spaces,' according to the list, which was posted on Reddit. The accommodation, which is located close...

There is no greater injustice in economics than Seth Smith; just hearing his name makes me boil with anger and depression and nihilism. It is so sad. Now that his killer’s court case came to a conclusion this week, and we have ostensibly obtained some semblance of closure, I am sadder than ever. Seth Smith was a double major in economics and history at UC Berkeley. He was only 19 but a third-year student, scheduled to graduate next spring at the age of 20... he must have been very smart. He was a beautiful and brilliant young guy who had...

UC Berkeley scholar’s old lecture resurfaces and prompts criticism, debate “That’s why I am coming up with this recent understanding that to abolish whiteness is to abolish white people. That’s very uncomfortable perhaps, but it asks about our definitions of what race is and what racial justice might mean.”

OK, we learned something new today. We’ve written a lot about DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) but we’d never heard of DEIBJ, which stands for “diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice” (how soon until we see DEIBJ+). The Skimm interviewed UC Berkeley’s new Vice Chancellor of Equity and Inclusion, Dania Matos, who describes the emotional toll of her $325,000 a year gig. At the time of her interview, she’d only been at UC Berkeley for about a month, so her typical day consisted of “holding informal and formal listening sessions focused on truth-telling, trust, and transformation.” The Skimm asked her...

Last December news leaked that the Breakthrough Listen project, part of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), had picked up an unexplained signal from the direction of Proxima Centauri. Although everyone involved stressed how unlikely it was that our first evidence for alien intelligence would come from the nearest star to our Sun, some dared to hope. Further research, however, has made Earth-based interference a near-certain explanation. There are many reasons to study Proxima Centauri besides the possibility of technological radio emissions. Australia’s giant Murriyang radio telescope was pointed towards the star primarily to study stellar flares, but in the...