Robert Berry stood solemnly in the lobby of the University of Arizona’s College of Education building.
Berry, the college’s dean, nodded quietly and rocked back and forth on his feet as about 60 students, faculty and community members staged a sit-in Monday to protest his suspension of two of the college’s faculty members after they spoke about the Israel-Hamas war in class.
“We don’t want you to understand, we want you to stand with us,” one student interjected after Berry told the crowd he understood their “passion.”
Berry, hands full of papers, nodded slowly in response.
On Nov. 13, Berry and the UA suspended education professors Rebecca Lopez and Rebecca Zapien with pay after a recording of their class was posted on the X (formerly Twitter) account @IsraelWarRoom, a pro-Israel platform with more than 260,000 followers.
The audio clips, which students claim were edited, include the professors discussing the Israel-Palestine conflict. At one point in the recording, they compare Hamas to the Black Panther Party in the United States.
In a statement last week, UA spokeswoman Pam Scott wrote that “the college and university will determine how to proceed after they have completed an ongoing investigation.” Scott declined Monday to comment on the sit-in.
Now, some students and others are rallying around the suspended professors, claiming the university acted too swiftly in suspending them.
“I really commend the professors Lopez and Zapien, because they are teaching our children to be critical thinkers, and that’s what we need,” said Isabel Garcia, an immigrant rights attorney at the Coalición de Derechos Humanos, at the sit-in. “You must reinstate them.”
The students who organized the sit-in said they have received over 50 testimonials from Lopez and Zapien’s students urging that the two be reinstated.
Kisiel Chapman, a senior at the College of Education, presented the group’s demands to Berry, who said he would read them but, when pressed by the protesters, would not commit to making any changes.
“Where’s your backbone?” one protester shouted.
“Can you give us a timeline?” another asked.
“Would you or the university like to furnish us with a list of what we can talk about?” a third argued.
The sit-in, organized by students within the College of Education, will continue until Berry reinstates the two professors to their posts, organizers told him in a meeting.
Two policies cited in suspensions
Berry told protestors his team was working on getting a meeting set up between himself and the two suspended professors.
He told the leaders of the sit-in in a private meeting that was recorded and released on their Instagram account that he was meeting with administrators in the office of general counsel, as well. The students are asking that Lopez and Zapien be reinstated by end of day on Tuesday.
“I’m trying to have a sense of urgency,” Berry told the student leaders in their meeting. “We need to clean out our calendars, we need to meet today.”
If the offices don’t agree to have a conversation, the students are prepared to move their sit-in to administrative offices, they told Berry.
The Arizona Daily Star obtained the letters sent to Lopez and Zapien announcing their suspension, both of which were sent by Berry.
“Paid administrative leave is not disciplinary action, and you will continue to receive your normal compensation and benefits during the term of the leave,” Berry wrote in the letter. A record of the suspension will not become part of the professors’ personnel files, either, he said.
In his letter, Berry cited two policies the professors are suspected of violating: UHAP 7.01, which focuses on professional conduct, and UHAP 2.10, which contains rules on political activity and lobbying. Both policies are detailed and multiple pages long. Berry did not write which parts of either policies the professors may be in violation of.
Campus workers union involved
Critics of the suspension argue that because Lopez and Zapien are not allowed on the UA campus or to teach their classes, they are being unfairly disciplined.
“Just because administrative says it’s not punitive doesn’t make it so,” said Matthew Abraham, an English professor at the UA and member of the United Campus Workers of Arizona union.
He said the union is fighting for the professors to be “immediately” reinstated with an apology issued by UA President Robert Robbins.
Abraham said he thinks Berry is “having to basically take the heat for a decision that was probably made way beyond his office and beyond the College of Education.”
“I’ve never seen a university administration so directly undermining free speech and academic freedom protections,” Abraham said. He said the university’s actions reminded him of McCarthyism.
“It’s reminiscent of an earlier time in American history called McCarthyism,” he said. “Do we really want to go there? At this historical moment we should be sharing and embracing all sorts of views, not shutting them down.”
McCarthyism, which occurred mainly during the 1950s, was the political repression and persecution of individuals whom federal officials accused of spreading left-wing views, especially surrounding communism.
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