A viral video shows the contentious moment between a UC Berkeley law student and a law professor as the school's dean hosted a dinner at his home. The story follows months of disputes between pro-Palestinian and some Jewish students.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Widely viewed on social media shows a contentious moment, a UC Berkeley law student engaging with a law professor and the dean of the school.
00:08 I cannot conceive of a way that they could argue that they had a first amendment right.
00:14 We were invited to the premises and we would willfully leave the premises. So that had always been the plan.
00:20 The altercation took place at the home of the dean of the law school during a dinner where he invited the students as part of an annual tradition. Good evening, everyone. I'm Mike Mebeck.
00:29 And I'm Julie Haener. The story follows months of disputes between pro-Palestinian and Jewish students on campus.
00:35 New at 6 tonight, KTVU's Crystal Bailey joins us now live after taking a closer look at the accusations that the respected law school dean violated the students' constitutional rights. Crystal.
00:46 Well, Julie, the video only shows the aftermath. The dean is arguing that the event happened at his private home, so he had a right to ask her to leave.
00:56 The student is arguing that this was a school event, so she had the right to speak.
01:00 It was a celebratory dinner for the graduating law students at UC Berkeley, scheduled for the last day of Ramadan, holy month for Muslims, and the first of three nights the dean and his wife were hosting students.
01:12 Malak Anafe says her organization, Law Students for Justice in Palestine, was boycotting the dinner and shared this poster saying no dinner with Zionist Chem while Gaza starves.
01:23 We felt that this dinner was, you know, a kind of disgusting and extravagant and lavish display of wealth that was already being funneled using our tuition money for this genocide.
01:37 In a lengthy statement, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky called the posters anti-Semitic but said, "I felt that though deeply offensive, they were speech protected by the First Amendment."
01:47 Despite the protest, Chemerinsky went on with the dinner and Anafe and about 10 other students decided to attend. She began speaking with a microphone and this video shows what happened next.
01:58 Please leave our house. You are guests at our house.
02:02 We were invited to the premises and we would willfully leave the premises, so that had always been the plan.
02:07 We had even done a criminal defense consult with the National Lawyers Guild who, you know, pretty much thought this was a pretty low risk action.
02:16 The Dean wrote in a statement, "My wife and I immediately approached her and asked her to stop and leave. The woman continued.
02:23 When she continued, there was an attempt to take away her microphone. Repeatedly, we said to her that you are a guest in our home. Please stop and leave."
02:30 As seen in the video, the Dean's wife, Law Professor Catherine Fisk, is seen snatching the phone from Anafe's hand.
02:37 She kept on grabbing inappropriately at my breasts and kept grabbing in my shirt area, trying to tug and pull.
02:43 An action she calls assault and a violation of her First Amendment rights.
02:48 I was in pain and I was scared.
02:50 But the Dean says his home is not a forum for free speech, adding, "Any student who disrupts will be reported to Student Conduct and a violation of the Student Conduct Code is reported to the Bar."
03:00 That was his private residence. The First Amendment doesn't apply in that kind of place.
03:06 Civil Rights Attorney Laurel Powell says Chemerinsky is respected nationwide for his work in constitutional rights and thinks the Dean is well within his rights to remove a student from his property.
03:16 As soon as the Dean and his wife, who's a law professor, told her to leave, at that point she was trespassing.
03:25 She also says it would be hard to prove the actions of Fisk are assault in a court of law.
03:30 It's hard to imagine why a prosecutor who has a lot of discretion to choose whether to prosecute any crime would attempt to prosecute this as assault.
03:42 We were unable to reach the Dean and his wife for further comment and we could not confirm whether the event was funded with any tuition money.
03:49 Now, the Dean says that there will be another dinner tonight and tomorrow night and those will continue with security present.
03:58 Now, that student says that she is looking into taking any legal action she can against the university.
04:03 I'm live in Berkeley, Crystal Bailey, KTVU, Fox 2 News.
04:07 So, Crystal, just to clarify, the Dean says they invited, they were invited guests to his home but then they asked them to leave.
04:13 They didn't leave. So were the police called?
04:15 There was some threat to call the police. I'm not sure exactly if that threat was acted upon,
04:23 but the student did tell me that she was asked to leave and that they would, they did say they would call the police if she did not.
04:28 All right, Crystal Bailey reporting live for us tonight in Berkeley. Crystal, thank you.