Last year, I was privileged to serve the student body as its external affairs vice president and as part of my duties, represent UC Berkeley as a voting board member of the University of California Student Association. I have great respect for the UCSA but am deeply saddened by the Read More…
Click here to read the Senior Editorial Board’s full endorsements. In the past academic year, UC Berkeley students have met history head-on, continually shouting for our rights and ideals — whatever those may be. Instances including the Berkeley College Republicans’ intentionally racist bake sale, police violence at Occupy Cal, Louis Read More…
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan addressed an estimated 600 students at UC Berkeley last Saturday and told black students not to befriend any Jew without first reading “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews,” a book that promotes the thesis that Jews were behind the black slave trade. Heck of Read More…
Just as the outcry concerning Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s visit to campus betrayed UC Berkeley’s tradition of enlightened discourse, so too did parts of the minister’s speech here on March 10. Nothing should have prevented this controversial figure from speaking at a conference hosted by the Black Student Read More…
I would like to reiterate that I and the other student leaders who created the petition about hosting Louis Farrakhan at UC Berkeley “completely support the annual Afrikan Black Coalition Conference as an indispensable contribution to the empowerment of black students across the state of California.” The BSU had the First Amendment right to Read More…
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” This old adage, repeated on countless playgrounds across the country, made so much sense when we were kids. If some menacing meanie approached us on the schoolyard spewing put-downs, we were taught to disempower them through intentional Read More…
Religious leader Louis Farrakhan spoke to a full Wheeler Auditorium at the Afrikan Black Coalition Conference Saturday, despite concerns voiced by campus groups regarding anti-Semitic, homophobic and other controversial statements they say he has made in the past. Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, talked about black empowerment and Read More…
UC Berkeley’s place in the American story represents the best in scientific, social and cultural innovation. Its scholars have found treatments for heinous afflictions and advanced justice with their research and words. When we fight, we fight for freethinking justice, as exemplified by the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s. Read More…
When I recently heard that the keynote speaker for the Afrikan Black Coalition Conference was going to be Minister Louis Farrakhan, I was disappointed. For a campus that prides itself on openness and inclusivity I can’t think of a more divisive speaker. When Farrakhan spoke at a national convention just Read More…
Continuing contention over the scheduled appearance of religious leader Louis Farrakhan at an upcoming conference organized by the UC Berkeley Black Student Union has led to a petition in protest of his speech. Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, is scheduled to speak on Saturday at the Afrikan Black Read More…