UC Berkeley police evacuated an event organized by Jewish student groups after pro-Palestinian protesters broke through a door to the building and smashed a window.
At one point, about 200 protesters gathered outside the event site, Zellerbach Playhouse, holding signs that read, “Stop the genocide,” and at times chanting, “Long live the intifada,” videos posted online showed. social.
University officials called the incident “appalling” and said police had to cancel the event and escort students to safety due to the number of protesters and the threat of violence.
“We had to choose between doing what was necessary to allow the event to continue or protecting the people in the building,” said Dan Mogulof, a university spokesman.
In a message sent to university staff and students Tuesday afternoon, UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ and Provost Benjamin E. Hermalin called the incident “an attack on the university's core values.”
The featured speaker at the event was Ran Bar-Yoshafat, an Israeli lawyer and former member of the Israeli military. It was organized by Students Support Israel in Berkeley and Berkeley Tikvah, according to the Daily Californian, UC Berkeley's student newspaper.
Messages to the organizations seeking comment were not immediately returned.
Since the October 7 attack by Hamas in Israel and the subsequent attacks by the Israeli army in Gaza, the university has witnessed multiple protests on its campus. But Mogulof said Monday's incident was unlike past incidents.
“We've had other protesters, but not those who were breaking down doors and windows,” he said.
Social media posts encouraging protesters to show up on campus helped increase participation outside the event. Mogulof declined to give specific numbers, but said police sent more officers Monday night than to any other protest on campus since Oct. 7.
School officials' concerns increased when they learned of a social media post from Bears for Palestine, a campus group, calling on protesters to “shut it down.”
In the post, the group claimed that Bar-Yoshafat was invited to “spread colonial Zionist propaganda about the genocide in which he participated” and called on protesters to show up before 6 p.m.
Messages sent to the group seeking comment were not immediately returned.
In posts on social media, the group noted when the event was moved from a location to the Zellerbach Theater and posted a video of protesters marching toward the building, chanting, “Yoshafat, you can't hide.”
Other videos of the incident posted on social media showed protesters banging on closed glass doors.
In one video, UC Berkeley Police Chief Yogananda Pittman is seen taking the microphone in a theater and evacuating the room.
“We are asking all people to leave,” he says. The seats in the theater seemed almost empty.
In the statement to the university, Christ and Hermalin confirmed that the building was evacuated “to protect the speaker and audience members.”
“We want to express our deep remorse and sympathy to the students and public who were in the building, fearing for their safety,” the statement read. “We deeply respect the right to protest as intrinsic to the value of a democracy in an institution of higher education. However, we cannot ignore protest activities that interfere with the rights of others to hear and/or express the perspectives of their choosing. “We cannot allow the use or threat of force to violate a speaker’s First Amendment rights, no matter how much we disagree with his or her views.”
School officials said no one was treated for injuries at the scene and no arrests were made. Still, UC Berkeley officials said they are reaching out to staff and students and urging them to inform the university if they were injured.
Since Monday's incident, Mogulof said, the university has received multiple messages from staff, students and the community expressing concern about the incident and its potential to lead to other violent incidents.
“We are taking those messages seriously,” he said.
