A message from Chancellor Lyons: A call for community and compassion
Chancellor Lyons shares a message about the impact of hateful rhetoric on our campus community.
October 28, 2024
Above, watch a video message from Chancellor Lyons conveying his profound concerns about the impact of hateful rhetoric and calls for violence on our campus community.
Clarification: On October 28, I sent this message to the UC Berkeley campus in order to share my concerns about the impact of hateful rhetoric on members of our community. I have subsequently learned that one of the examples was unintentionally misquoted. The posters I cited actually conveyed a quote from a student organization’s guest speaker who stated that there is a need to “eradicate transgenderism.”
I apologize for the error. At the same time, the impact of the actual phrase on members of our community, like the other examples cited in this message, remains for me a matter of serious concern.
I also want to take this opportunity to convey my condemnation of flyers found on campus subsequent to the release of this message, flyers that called for violence against “college Republicans.” Let there be no mistake, I am deeply concerned about the impact of that verbiage as well.
Rich Lyons
Chancellor
We need your help. At stake are our most essential values, the quality of our community, and our ability to be a truly inclusive campus where all can feel safe.
I am deeply concerned about the impact of rhetoric advocating for violence. I was disturbed by those who specifically called for a repeat of the carnage that targeted Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. I am concerned that the campus has received reports of unidentified individuals telling supporters of the Palestinian cause they hoped they would be subject to physical assault, and I was dismayed by recent posters calling for the elimination of transgender people. Sadly, these are not isolated incidents.
To be clear, I am not addressing the underlying events, issues or conflicts themselves, or the differing perspectives around them. I am only addressing the impact of expression endorsing violence on our campus community, because the relevance to our mission is clear. Far too many of our community members are living with fear and anxiety. They need our support and compassion.
Hateful rhetoric stirs extreme emotions. Calls for violence, left unchallenged, can expand the boundaries of acceptable discourse — and conduct. And so, normalization of violent rhetoric only brings us closer to actual violence, which is the antithesis of all that we stand for.
None of this is to say that we seek to suppress activism or free expression. We do not. Our commitment to free speech is unwavering. At the same time, however, there is a distinct moral difference between protesting what you oppose, or advocating for what you believe in and calling for violence.
To be clear, even terrifying rhetoric can be protected by the First Amendment. And so, the challenges we face cannot be countered by dictate or direction from the administration. We need to stand up as a community and implore those who call for violence, who use threatening or hateful language, to consider the inherent danger in their words and the impact of their rhetoric on others and on our community as a whole.
Now, with a divisive national election approaching, we have an opportunity to be change makers. We have the ability to model and embody a better way of being in community by engaging in constructive — not destructive — discourse.
I was encouraged to see on the Berkeley Reddit students with differing perspectives about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict united in their condemnation of the hateful rhetoric. They know we have something precious that must be protected, namely our ability to be a place where ideas can safely collide, a place that fosters supportive communal ties while also supporting true diversity of perspective.
As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself.”
The strength of our culture is a function of our collective commitment to its essential values. Right now it feels fragile and threatened, but I am certain that, working together, we can protect all that makes Berkeley its best.