An Open Letter for Peyrin's Reinstatement

"UC Berkeley please do better and stop demonizing your fellow staff/students for standing up for what’s right and using his voice for good. Don’t wear your “activism” as a badge of honor only when it benefits you, stick to the truth and speak proudly against ALL injustices. Also your CS department will go to hell without Peyrin let’s be real."

"Peyrin will be remembered as among the few with a conscience who stood on the right side of history. Not reinstating him will be yet another sign that the UCB administration has completely lost its conscience"

"Peyton did nothing wrong"

"I've always respected UC Berkeley as an institution committed to intellectual freedom and progressive politics. This is clearly an outdated impression. I'm deeply disappointed and angry to see these actions against a faculty member who acted with integrity. That the university is doing this is shameful, but especially so given that is further complicity in genocide. Make a better choice, and exist with a fraction of the courage that Peyrin has demonstrated."

"Shame on UC Berkeley, shame on the administration!"

"peyrin's political beliefs haven't affected his teaching or the experience of students in CS61B at all. he mentioned it maybe once or twice for 10 seconds in class and never talked about it again. I don't think its fair at all to suspend him, since he's also one of the best lecturers on campus."

"You made us sign this: UC Berkeley's core principles emphasize diversity, integrity, dignity, freedom of expression, and active engagement. Yet you are undermining those who seek the freedom to actively express injustice and indignity within our society."

"My first class with Peyrin was CS61B during the Fall of 2023. Throughout that class, he was nothing but professional. He explained concepts in ways that were easy to understand and had a very big impact on me in furthering my pursuit of CS. When the October 7th attacks occurred, as a Jewish student, Peyrin’s class was the class I felt the most heard and the safest in. Since CS61B I have taken two other classes from Peyrin and he has been nothing but an excellent instructor. It is shameful that the university has decided to suspend him when he is one of the best instructors in the department and has kept his classroom a safe and productive environment for all students."

"Peyrin never once mentioned Palestine on class time. I once asked him during class why he was on hunger strike, and he told me I could learn more on his website and that he wouldn’t talk about it during class. The words “Palestine” or “Gaza” was never uttered during class. Peyrin is a fantastic lecturer and a kind individual, he has been wrongfully suspended for a crime he did not commit."

"It’s so important that educators in cs courses speak to the complicity of tech industries in the Palestinian genocide and violence worldwide. It’s disappointing that the university can claim CDSS is an ethics-oriented cs/ds/stats college while simultaneously silencing and punishing educators who attempt to spread awareness on humanitarian crises happening right now, that students in said college are participating in as they enter the industry as interns for complicit companies. I was a Public Health student first, then decided to double major in Data Science, and it shocked me that fellow CS/DS majors told me they “don’t believe in the genocide”, “don’t believe protest works”, or are interning at Raytheon or something with no consideration to the implications of their career. Does that not alarm the university which goes on to have so many cs/ds students in important positions in the world? Peyrin is a great teacher and example. I took CS61B when he wasn’t teaching and dropped the class, took it again this semester and he helped a lot. I’m sure the university will look back in 50 years and preach the power and importance of students and staff who spoke up against genocide, reaping the benefits of a “progressive” and “free speech” university, but for now prefer to keep their hands bloody for the sake of money. I chose this university for its supposed values and I’m ashamed to be made a fool."

"Peyrin was the only faculty that took time to actually talk to students when invited to a minorities in CS faculty lunch. He actually cares about his students."

"Free Palestine! And free Peyrin, huge inspiration to all of us CS or not!"

"What Provost Benjamin E. Hermalin is a gross violation of civil rights, it is emblematic of the UC Admin's impotency. History will absolve Peyrin, and remember him as a hero. Ben Hermalin will be catalogued as a Judas of all that education and humanity stand for. I would highly encourage him to resign, stand up for something or sit down!"

"I am extremely grateful to Peyrin for using his voice to make minority students feel heard and safe. As we rarely hear professors from our departments speak to us about the value behind our work, Peyrin has been so valuable to shaping our education and making us feel heard on campus."

"Peyrin is an amazing lecturer and takes his role as a teacher and a mentor incredibly seriously. When I was having trouble with a student bullying other students during office hours I informed Peyrin and he immediately took action and did everything he could to ensure that the affected students were okay and that the proper campus authorities were notified of said student’s behavior. Peyrin is one of the most capable instructors in the EECS/CS department, his teaching capabilities far outshine those of a vast majority of the professors currently tenured at this university. It is shameful that a university that prides itself on its history of supporting free speech is silencing the voices of its faculty and students alike."

"I have worked with Peyrin, and I can say he is unequivocally the backbone of the CS department right now. This situation is particularly upsetting to me because he genuinely cares about his students, staff, and the university, quite possibly more than any other lecturer or professor I know. He is the reason why so many courses on this campus are even able to run at all. His suspension, outside of being blatantly unconstitutional, is a huge detriment to the quality of education CS students will receive. UC Berkeley, when you boast your CS ranking to the general public, know that it is only good as it is because of a man whose rights you have freely and publicly violated. When you see your TAs and students struggling next semester, remember that you had the ability to put your those people as well as your constitution and morals first, and chose not to. And when you read an article citing your university as the birth of the Free Speech Movement, or when FSM cafe re-opens and you read those stories and quotes on the wall, remember that you have disgraced that legacy and every single person who fought for it. I am beyond disappointed in you."

"As someone who has worked very closely with Peyrin on course staff AND taken multiple classes taught by him, he is clearly not someone who forces his opinion on others. During his hunger strike, he never even told members of his staff that he was undertaking it, and only mentioned it briefly in class, without addressing the cause. In choosing to suspend Peyrin, Vice Chancellor Hermalin and the university are clearly choosing to exercise personal bias in an attempt to appease the Trump Administration, in flagrant violation of university policy and the first amendment. Even the EE and CS chairs admit that it is unclear that this action constitutes a violation of any university policy (as per The Daily Cal). This is NOT acceptable behavior from a university which champions itself as a bastion of free speech, nor is it an acceptable way to treat a lecturer who consistently goes above and beyond, both for his students and his department."

"I had Peyrin as an instructor for CS 161, CS 188, and CS 168, and worked with Peyrin for 4 semesters as a TA for CS 188. Peyrin's contributions to CS at Berkeley are nothing short of a miracle for the department, and to be frank, losing Peyrin will be a disaster. The department needs to be made aware. Never have I ever seen someone as devoted or hardworking as Peyrin. Myself and/or my friends have directly seen him: - Sleep in Soda Hall after working long into the night - With the help of a few TA's, grade an exam literally overnight, by staying up past midnight - Answer so many students' Ed questions that he started to post them as invisible-to-students so that other TA's could copy-paste his responses and take the credit - Bail out overflowing office hours queues when TA's were swamped--even though he wasn't officially teaching that class that semester - Be actively working at 12AM on New Year's Day Peyrin has the unique ability to run multiple classes smoothly in a way that absolutely no professor or head TA ever could. In every semester I've worked with him, he has been majorly involved in running logistics for at the bare minimum, 3 or 4 different courses, often without even officially being an instructor. No task is too menial or too complex for him--he isn't afraid to go print exams at 3 in the morning, but has the knowledge and experience to write exam questions and deal with far-reaching course policies. While TA's and instructors certainly work hard, Peyrin is an incredible force multiplier and his loss would directly torpedo the effectiveness of, at minimum, 4 different key courses (CS 61B, CS 161, CS 188, CS 168). With less capacity to handle students in these classes, and with students less prepared and more stressed for follow-on courses, the effects will propagate throughout the entire department like a tsunami. Any insinuation that Peyrin's activism or hunger strike have negatively impacted his teaching abilities and student learning is preposterous, because he's always done so much more than has been expected of him. Even if he was 1/2 as productive as he is, he would still be as effective as a particularly hardworking teaching professor--and leagues beyond many of my professors, to be honest. I'll leave it to my peers to speak about other factors. But from a pedagogical standpoint, suspending Peyrin would be the biggest mistake the department could make."

"This is a flagrant violation of free speech and mimics big tech's repression pro-Palestine, the same repression that Peyrin was talking about to begin with. The same tactics that lead to dozens of workers at Google, Amazon, and Microsoft being fired are also being used here because Peyrin dared to speak out for what he believes in. It's clear UC Berkeley is specifically coming after pro-Palestine speech. STEM studies are too often depoliticized and sanitized, but the truth is that nothing we study and none of the work we do can be free of politics. We need to be having more of the discussions that Peyrin was starting, not less."

"Free speech is not a crime."

"Through his actions for Palestine, Peyrin Kao has consistently set the example for ethics in STEM. I have had the pleasure of organizing with him, and I am inspired by his humility and steadfastness. During his hunger strike, he constantly stated that this action is about the genocide in Palestine - not about him - and he rigorously promoted humanitarian aid efforts for individuals and families in Gaza. Peyrin's humanity has restored my previously lost hope that it is possible to be a person of conscience within the STEM community. This hope is key to my personal and professional identity, as I studied Astrophysics at Cal. In my recent-grad years, I worked as a Planetarium Educator at The Lawrence Hall of Science, where I integrated my politics of liberation into my teaching. The University's shameful attempt to silence Peyrin inspires me to speak louder - this suspension is evidence that our voices are working to bring truth to power."

"fuck the fundamentalist zionist murderers"

"Free Palestine"

"In the stairwell of MLK Student Union, a plaque reads: “You, in a real sense, have been the conscience of the academic community and our nation.” Dr. King said those words to Berkeley students on the steps of Sproul Hall in 1967, and that spirit is what makes me proud to be a Berkeley alum. I, like many others, am proud of Peyrin for carrying on that spirit so courageously. The administration should be ashamed of actions that betray the deepest values of our academic community."

"Berkeley is the home of the Free Speech Movement, a movement led by Cal students that has changed universities and higher education in the decades since. Peyrin is upholding this legacy, even as the University itself shirks it."