September 29 2025, 08:15 
Two weeks ago, the University of California at Berkeley handed over the names of 160 faculty, students, and staff to the Trump administration as part of its investigation into “alleged antisemitic incidents” on college campuses in the United States.
Among those was Judith Butler, the nonbinary queer theorist and prominent professor at UC Berkeley, whose outspoken condemnation of Israel’s response to the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas has made the Jewish intellectual a target under charges of antisemitism.
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The willing disclosure of names is a “well-known practice from the McCarthy Era,” Butler pointed out in a letter to David Robinson, UC Berkeley’s chief campus counsel, who notified the individuals whose files had been forwarded to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR).
“We should not be naive. Will those of us named now be branded on a government list? Will our travel be restricted? Will our email communications be surveilled?” Butler asked.
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“To allow universities to be bossed by political operatives in this way undermines the basic ideals of the university as well as [its] important links to the future of critical thought, dissent, and democracy,” she added.
Robinson explained that OCR was investigating “allegations of antisemitic harassment and discrimination” and “required production of comprehensive documents.”
We have a right to know the charges against us, to know who has made the charges and to review them and defend ourselves. But none of that has happened, which is why we’re in Kafka-land … It is an enormous breach of trust.
– Judith Butler
What those documents contained — specific allegations of antisemitism or anonymous tips — is unknown.
Butler questioned Robinson about the disclosures and said he provided no information on the specific allegations.
“We have a right to know the charges against us, to know who has made the charges and to review them and defend ourselves,” Butler said.
“But none of that has happened, which is why we’re in Kafka-land … It is an enormous breach of trust,” Butler told The Guardian.
Butler said they were told that UC’s normal procedures for handling complaints had been suspended, which would strip faculty of their rights to respond to claims or obtain basic information about the inquiries.
“That means allegations sent to the administration, even anonymous ones, were simply forwarded without having been adjudicated,” Butler said. “We don’t know whether we ourselves have been accused of antisemitism or whether our name is simply associated with an allegation.”
That would be a violation of Sixth Amendment rights for people to know the charges against them, Butler added.
After the start of the Gaza War in 2023, Butler published an essay titled “The Compass of Mourning,” in which they condemned the “terrifying and revolting massacre” of Israelis by Hamas but argued that the attacks should be seen in the context of the “horrors of the last 70 years.”
In 2024, they characterized the October 7 attacks as an “uprising”, or an instance of armed resistance, rather than as an act of terrorism.
“I think it is more honest and historically correct to say that the uprising of October 7 was an act of armed resistance. It is not a terrorist attack and it is not an antisemitic attack. It was an attack against Israelis,” Butler said.
Butler is a longtime supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel to end the country’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
The irony of UC Berkeley, home of the free speech movement in the 1960s, acceding to the demands of the Trump administration in their McCarthy-esque purge of dissent from college campuses wasn’t lost on the academic.
“We’ve been a place where controversial public issues can be freely debated. We have different views on Israel-Palestine. We need to hear them even when they upset us. That is the spirit of the place that I have been championing and affirming for 30 years. So it’s a heartbreak and it’s disgraceful,” they said.
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