THE BUZZ: POLITICAL SPEECH — The war in Gaza is testing the limits of academic freedom at the University of California. Today in Los Angeles, the UC Board of Regents is set to consider a policy that would dictate how academic departments can make political statements on university websites — and prohibit departments from posting those statements on their main pages. The proposal is largely seen as a response to a growing number of faculty groups criticizing Israel for its ground attack in Gaza, which has killed more than 30,000 people. Jewish leaders have pressured lawmakers and university officials to curb the antisemitic rhetoric that they say has exploded on campuses since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, and the House Committee on Education and Workforce just opened an investigation into UC Berkeley’s handling of a protest that forced the cancellation of an Israeli speaker’s lecture. Our education reporter, Blake Jones, has been following the turmoil on California campuses during the war and will be following the regents’ vote today. We checked in with him ahead of the meeting to learn more about the dynamics at play. Answers have been edited for length and clarity. Who is pushing for this new resolution, and what are they trying to accomplish? UC Regent and Hollywood talent agent Jay Sures is a lead proponent. He thinks the homepages of academic departments — the kind that students and faculty have to look at from time to time — should remain neutral on controversial issues. We should note he’s also an outspoken advocate of Israel and is responding to a rash of faculty groups denouncing Israel and its invasion of Gaza as “genocide” on their department websites. He and the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council have publicly criticized one another’s statements on the war, an exchange that led the council to call on him to resign, as we reported at the time. Sures told me by phone Tuesday that it’s possible the board won’t vote on the policy at the UC Regents’ meetings this week, and the board already once delayed a vote in January. The proposal could also be amended before a vote. Has there been much pushback? Does it have a chance of passing? Absolutely, there’s been pushback. The UC’s Academic Senate, which represents faculty, is opposing the idea. And I’m sure faculty members will express their concerns — on free speech, academic freedom and the unintended consequences of such a policy — during public comment at the meeting today. Look, we’re talking about one of the most prominent university systems in the world setting some kind of limit on where its professors and lecturers can express their opinions. The First Amendment debates only become more loaded when you talk about doing this at an institution that gets public funding, and doing so during an academic year in which the Israel-Hamas war is putting an astounding strain on American college campuses. Some faculty are OK with the proposed policy, the Academic Senate has noted, and departments could still express opinions on university webpages — just not the department’s homepage. Sures, for his part, maintains that the policy is narrow enough not to cause issues. “It protects academic freedom, and it protects freedom of speech, which is core to the mission of the University of California,” he told me. The proposal is hardly on a glidepath, but I wouldn’t count out some form of a policy change, either. How does this dovetail with how legislators in Sacramento are responding to the conflict? The backdrop of all this is that the California Legislative Jewish caucus has been openly critical of how the UC has responded to antisemitism on campus. Most recently, it pressed the 10-campus system to do more to address the issue after Jewish students at UC Berkeley had to be evacuated from an event through a tunnel after protesters shattered a window and broke open a door. Members of the caucus have also met with UC President Michael Drake multiple times on the issue. Jesse Gabriel, the caucus co-chair, told me those discussions have been “very, very frank,” but praised university leaders for condemning antisemitism in recent statements. “Hopefully we're going to see some continued action on that front,” he said. Caucus leaders also plan to introduce a package of bills targeting antisemitism on campuses. (More on that below.) GOOD MORNING. Happy Wednesday. Thanks for waking up with Playbook. And thanks to everyone who came out for our events in Sacramento yesterday. Now you can text us at 916-562-0685 — save it as “CA Playbook” in your contacts now. Or drop us a line at lkorte@politico.com and dgardiner@politico.com, or on X — @DustinGardiner and @Lara_Korte. WHERE’S GAVIN? Nothing official announced. Probably still watching Proposition 1 results trickle in.
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