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<h1 class="entry-title" data-content-field="title"><a
href="http://palestinelegal.org/news/2016/9/19/uc-berkeley-reinstates-course-on-palestine">UC
Berkeley Reinstates Course on Palestine</a><span
class="article-dateline"></span><strong></strong><br>
</h1>
<p>September 19, 2016 - <font size="-2"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://palestinelegal.org/news/2016/9/19/uc-berkeley-reinstates-course-on-palestine">http://palestinelegal.org/news/2016/9/19/uc-berkeley-reinstates-course-on-palestine</a></font><br>
</p>
<p><strong>Contact:</strong><br>
Dylan Fahoome, Palestine Legal<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:media@palestinelegal.org">media@palestinelegal.org</a><br>
</p>
<p>University of California Berkeley (Cal) reinstated a <a
target="_blank"
href="http://palestinelegal.org/s/Palestine_DeCal_Syllabus.pdf">student-led
course </a>on Palestine this morning following an outcry over
its arbitrary suspension last week. The suspension, taken in
apparent response to pressure from Israel advocacy groups, was
widely condemned -- by students, professors, and observers -- as a
violation of academic freedom, shocking, and unjustifiable.</p>
<p>Palestine Legal sent a <a
href="http://palestinelegal.org/s/Letter-to-UC-Berkeley-9-16-16-Re-Suspension-of-Ethnic-Studies-198_Final-ahnr.pdf">letter</a>
to Cal Chancellor Dirks Friday, on behalf of Paul Hadweh, the
student facilitator, warning that the suspension infringed on
First Amendment rights and principles of academic freedom. The
letter demanded immediate reinstatement and an apology to the
students.</p>
<p>Executive Dean of the College of Letters and Science, Carla
Hesse, announced in a statement that the course is reinstated.</p>
<p>“I hope we can now focus on the challenging intellectual and
political questions that this course seeks to address,” said Paul
Hadweh, the course facilitator and Cal senior whose family is
originally from Bethlehem.</p>
<p>“I await an apology from Chancellor Dirks, and Dean Hesse,”
explained Hadweh. “The university threw me under the bus, and
publicly blamed me, without ever even contacting me. It seems that
because I’m Palestinian studying Palestine, I’m guilty until
proven innocent. To defend the course, we had to mobilize an
international outcry of scholars and students to stand up for
academic freedom. This never should have happened.”</p>
<p>Liz Jackson, staff attorney with Palestine Legal who represents
Paul Hadweh, added, “This is a victory for Paul who spent spent 8
months going through all the recommended and mandated procedures
to facilitate a course. It’s also a victory for the 26 students
who enrolled and had their academic studies severely disrupted,
and for students and scholars across the U.S. who are facing a
coordinated attack on the right to speak and study freely about
Palestine-Israel.”</p>
<p>Echoing the concerns of Israel advocacy groups, Cal Chancellor
Nicholas Dirks had justified the suspension with concern that
Hadweh’s course “espoused a single political viewpoint and
appeared to offer a forum for political organizing.”</p>
<p>Jackson explained, “The university’s response should have been
that academic freedom protects the rights of faculty and students
to tackle difficult and even controversial questions. The extra
scrutiny on scholarship relating to Palestine is obvious here. The
university does not censor Israeli studies classes because they
have a ‘political agenda’ or ‘ignore history’, although that case
can also be made.”</p>
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