In other words, everything that the Israel haters did, that Jewish students were complaining about for months, and that was condoned on most campuses, has been recognized as being against university policies and that they violate the rights of students.
He also wrote a letter to the university community. His letter starts off by saying how importsnt freedom of expression is. And then he throws down the "BUT...."
Clear communication and consistent application of policies and laws are key to achieving the delicate but essential balance between free speech rights and the need to protect the safety of our community and maintain critical University operations.With these goals in mind, we will take several steps to facilitate more consistency across our locations, including:Clarifying and reinforcing requirements for policies impacting expressive activities, including policies that prohibit camping or encampments, unauthorized structures, restrictions on free movement, masking to conceal identity, and refusing to reveal one’s identity when asked to do so by University personnel;Developing a framework for consistent implementation of our policies and for consistent responses to policy violations;...
These were all policies that existed on these campuses. The university chancellors looked the other way, perhaps out of fear, perhaps because they agreed with the Israel haters, perhaps for another reason. But the fact is that policies exist for a reason and the University of California campuses threw students, especially Jewish students, under the bus by choosing not to apply them.
Putting tents up on campus was never allowed under policy.
Blocking students from public areas of campus was never allowed under policy.
Concealing one's face for reasons other than medical was never allowed under policy.
Yet they allowed all of these things to happen.
It is nice that they belatedly decide to ensure that the coming semester isn't like the previous ones. It is no less important that they are tacitly admitting that they screwed up big time and allowed their university campuses, and "freedomof expression," to be hijacked.
