UC Berkeley’s Betrayal of Academic Freedom in this Time of Genocide

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with UC Berkeley Professor Ussama Makdisi, who was recently informed that UC Berkeley shared his name, along with those of 159 other Berkeley faculty & students, with the federal government for "alleged incidents of antisemitism." Peter & Ussama discuss the absurdity of experience -- the accused have not been informed of any details of the allegations against them -- while looking at why UC Berkeley is not defending its faculty and students, how the Berkeley experience compares with how other universities have capitulated to the Trump administration, and whether academic freedom on campus will survive. Most urgently, they discuss how the attacks on universities are meant to distract from the genocide Israel is carrying out right now against Palestinians.  Resources on this topic include "UC Berkeley shares 160 names with Trump administration in ‘McCarthy era’ move," The Guardian 9/12/25; "UC Berkeley professor warns of 'unprecedented crackdown' on academic freedom." NPR interview with Ussama Makdisi on 9/18/25 "When Universities Become Informants," by Judith Butler, 9/13/25 "Kafka-land at UC Berkeley," by Judith Butler, The Nation, 9/16/25 Dr. Ussama Makdisi is Professor of History and Chancellor’s Chair at the University of California Berkeley. He was previously Professor of History and the first holder of the Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair of Arab Studies at Rice University in Houston.  During AY 2019-2020, Professor Makdisi was a Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley in the Department of History. Makdisi was awarded the Berlin Prize and spent the Spring 2018 semester as a Fellow at the American Academy of Berlin. Professor Makdisi’s most recent book Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World was published in 2019 by the University of California Press. He is also the author of Faith Misplaced: the Broken Promise of U.S.-Arab Relations, 1820-2001 (Public Affairs, 2010).  His previous books include Artillery of Heaven: American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East (Cornell University Press, 2008), which was the winner of the 2008 Albert Hourani Book Award from the Middle East Studies Association, the 2009 John Hope Franklin Prize of the American Studies Association, and a co-winner of the 2009 British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize given by the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies. Makdisi is also the author of The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon (University of California Press, 2000) and co-editor of Memory and Violence in the Middle East and North Africa (Indiana University Press, 2006). He has published widely on Ottoman and Arab history as well as on U.S.-Arab relations and U.S. missionary work in the Middle East. Peter Beinart is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He is also a Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York, a Contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, an Editor-at-Large at Jewish Currents, and an MSNBC Political Commentator. His newest book (published 2025) is Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. Original music by Jalal Yaquoub.