On this episode, six reporters trace how student activism in the Bay Area sparks movements for social change, nationally—and how each generation continues to reshape what’s possible. This episode moves across time and tactics, from the 1968 San Francisco State strike that birthed the nation’s first College of Ethnic Studies to today’s campus fights over free speech and political dissent. You’ll hear stories rooted in Berkeley and beyond: Native students carrying forward the legacy of Alcatraz, STEM students organizing around Palestine, conservative activism on Cal’s historically liberal campus, and more!
FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Accuracy and availability of North Gate Radio transcripts vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. The authoritative record of North Gate Radio’s programming is the audio record.
MUSIC UP IN THE CLEAR, FADES UNDER
HOST, DINEE DORAME:
The Bay Area has long been a launch pad for social movements. And, campus activism has pushed social change across the country –
(ARCHIVAL MONTAGE of student protest sound throughout the years)
HOST, DINEE DORAME:
From influencing the investments and divestments of major educational institutions to restructuring how and what we learn in higher education.Each new generation of college students finds its causes. Whether arguing for more inclusive spaces or the right to an abortion, marching for peace, or raising voices against war, the kinetic energy and sense of community on campuses create tidal waves that cross oceans. There is nowhere better to tell these stories than UC Berkeley, where today’s episode was made.
MUSIC BUMP
DORAME/HOST, CONT’D.
You’re listening to North Gate Radio. A radio show and podcast produced at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism located on campus at North Gate Hall.
I’m your host, Dinée Dorame. Together with five other reporters, we explore student activism from different angles—inside and outside the classroom, past and present, progressive and conservative—and what students gain and lose in thOSE various struggles.
MUSIC BUMP
The longest student-led strike in U.S. history unfolded across the Bay from Berkeley, in the city of San Francisco. The year was 1968 and student activists joined with professors and community members in a solidarity strike demanding San Francisco State University admit more students of color and create a college of ethnic studies. At the same time, the Vietnam War raged on and men of color were being sent to battle in high numbers. Young Black and brown men were torn from their communities while their white counterparts were able to avoid military service by enrolling in colleges and universities. North Gate Radio’s Lylah Schmedel-Permanna brings us the story of the college student who helped end the strike with support from an unlikely collaborator. In the process, they transformed higher education as we know it.
LYLAH SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
I’m sitting with Dr. Ramona Tascoe. She’s a 75-year-old pediatrician now, but we’re looking at a photo of her from college. She’s wearing a floral dress and holding a cocktail glass.
RAMONA TASCOE:
I was probably about 20, because my Afro was still big.
SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
In the photo. She’s standing next to a gray-haired si Hayakawa, the former president of San Francisco College now San Francisco State University. He grins from cheek to cheek.
TASCOE:
That’s Hayakawa.
SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
And that’s you?
TASCOE:
That’s me.
SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
That’s a lot of hair.
TASCOE:
Yeah, that is a lot of hair. [Laughter]
SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
Hayakawa’s presidency began in the midst of the historic student strike that would last nearly five months. The year was 1968, and student strikers were demanding change. He drew wide hatred among students quickly after he unplugged all the cords to a microphone set up used by students for their speeches.It was his first day on the job.
[Archival sound of strikers: Power to the people, power to the people, power to the people, power to the people.]
SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
That wasn’t the only chaos of that day.
S.I. HAYAKAWA [archival]: The only damage done today was the two panes of glass here in the administration building, and I have the brick thrown through the window to keep as a souvenir.
SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
Hayakawa resisted the 15 demands authored by the Black Student Union and its counterpart, the Third World Liberation Front. One of those demands was the creation of a college of ethnic studies. Student strikers vowed not to return to class until their demands were met and Hayakawa wasn’t having any of it.
HAYAKAWA [archival]:
I solemnly resolved to keep this college open and functioning no matter what it takes and whom I shall have to fight.
SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
The idea of a college of ethnic studies was especially important to people like Tasco, whose parents fled the Jim Crow South to San Francisco when she was three years old. She was one of three black students at her high school, and she was the valedictorian of her class, but she didn’t get the centerpiece in the yearbook or the full ride scholarship for college. Instead:
TASCOE:
I got a one year subscription. To Read’s, digest, I was a damn good student. And when it was time for me to get my scholarship and my centerpiece in the yearbook and I didn’t, I saw purple. Purple wasn’t good.
SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
So when she stepped onto San Francisco State’s campus as an undergrad, she was disillusioned with the idea that conforming would award her equal treatment. Tascoe was ready to fight for the recognition she deserved. She threw out her hot comb and started growing her afro.
[James Brown’s song “Say it Loud” fading in]
TASCOE:
We were finding ourselves, we were finding our voice. We were stepping into the authority and James Brown kicking it off with the declaration. Say it loud. I’m black and I proud. Say it loud. And as he would crescendo, you could almost feel the healing.
[James Brown’s song “Say it Loud” fading out]
TASCOE:
It was a delayed reaction to years of the oppressed black mind of a generation of young people who said, oh hell no.
SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
The Asian, Latino, and native students on campus were also facing discriminatory treatment, and they were also saying, hell no. They took inspiration from the BSU and built their own solidarity organizations like the Third World Liberation Front. The spark that set the strike ablaze was the suspension of a popular graduate student and English instructor. George Murray. Murray was an active member of the Black Panther Party and vocal about his opposition to the Vietnam War.
GEORGE MURRAY:
The war in Vietnam is racist. It is the war using black soldiers and, uh, poor white soldiers and Mexican soldiers as dupes and fools to fight against, uh, people of color in Vietnam.
SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
Reporter Claud Mann covered the strike for KTVU news.
CLAUD MANN [archival]: With 1400 full and part-time instructors, there does appear to be near unanimity that the handling of the Murray case jeopardizes campus autonomy and endangers that hard to define concept of academic freedom. Since Murray’s credentials and the quality of his teaching have never been questioned. They feel his suspension was on the basis of his political views as a Black Panther.
[Archival sound, strikers]:
On strike shut it. On strike shut it down. On strike shut it down.
SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
On the first day of the strike, Tascoe and other BSU members showed up at the anthropology department to read the demands.
TASCOE:
I said, we’re here representing the Black Student Union and Third World Liberation Front, and to announce that we’re having a strike. School is out and we have 15 demands. Demand number one, demand number two. I didn’t get past demand number three. My cadre went behind the desk and got busy doing some things that they didn’t say they were gonna do, and an electric typewriter went out the window, telephone wires were cut, and I literally froze as they all broke and ran. And I was left there by myself and I said, demand number four.
[Ramona’s Laughter] Yes, I did demand number four. And the secretary said, honey, you better go.
SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
Tascoe was arrested that day during the four and a half months that the strike lasted. Hundreds of protesters were arrested, including teachers and local community members, and with all the arrests of BSU leaders. Tascoe says it fell on her to negotiate with campus leadership.After one of the meetings, she says, SI, Hayakawa asked to speak with her.
TASCOE:
He said, I don’t get it. What is it that the brothers want? I said, I think they want something that you can’t see and you have to feel it. We’ve been suffering for a long time, and you know, a Black Studies department and a College of Ethnic studies where we can learn about ourselves and learn to feel good about ourselves would make us all feel better.The strike was settled within a day or two thereafter.
SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
Even though Hayakawa and Tasco were on opposing sides, by the end of the strike, Hayakawa accepted the demands to create the first and only college of ethnic studies in the country.
HAYAKAWA:
(archival) “And what we would like to do at San Francisco State College and throughout the state college and university systems is to prepare black men and women and all minorities to take a place in this America with pride and with dignity.”
SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
The students didn’t get all of their demands met. The instructor who was suspended didn’t get his job back. The student strikers won, but it wasn’t a happy ending. It was messy like life, and life went on. S.I. Hayakawa rose through the ranks of California’s Republican party. Ramona Tascoe became a doctor, and Hayakawa wrote one of her med school recommendations.
TASCOE:
With the letter that he wrote for me to medical school. he said that we were very much on opposite sides during the strike. But that he learned to respect me. He learned to respect the cause.
SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
Tascoe says it’s time for the next generation to pick up the baton. Her advice. Be open to talking to people you may not agree with, or who may not think exactly the same way as you do.
TASCOE:
And find the words of equity that respect you and respect all others. Speak from that platform. Commit to that platform. And if you can’t do that, be silent and study a little longer.
SCHMEDEL-PERMANNA:
For Northgate Radio, I’m Lylah Schmedel-Permanna.
MUSIC TRANSITION
DORAME/HOST:
Fifty miles north of San Francisco, a program students fought to build at Sonoma State University is currently facing down its destruction. On the morning of the second day of Sonoma State University’s spring semester 2025, phones started buzzing in class. Everyone — students and faculty — received the same long email from the school administrators announcing cuts to address a major budget deficit. Twenty-two degree programs, including Women’s and Gender Studies, were among the cuts. Today, hundreds of colleges throughout the U.S. currently offer Women’s & Gender Studies classes, but in 1971, Sonoma State was one of the first.
Chelsea Kurnick reports on the historic effort to create the WGS program and the current fight to save it.
KURNICK:
J.J. Wilson, an English professor at Sonoma State, says her life changed at a Modern Language Association meeting in 1970 when she heard Florence Howe and other fiery feminists speak about women in literature. She remembers being in a crowd of women packed into a stuffy basement room inside a Hilton Hotel in New York City, then floating out the door afterward, realizing what her life’s work would be.
WILSON:
They lighted a flame inside, not only of me, but of many other people I know. And we came back to our own campuses and I joined a group of women students who were beginning to have a consciousness raising group. They were wonderful and taught me so much.
KURNICK:
J.J. and the students planned the school’s first women’s studies class, a student-taught seminar on Women and History offered in Spring 1971. J.J. taught a Women and Literature course that summer. She says faculty and administrators at the college were supportive of the burgeoning field of study, even though they often missed the mark.
WILSON:
One of the teachers came to me in the summer so excited and said, “You’ll be so glad, J.J.– we’ve added Madame Bovary!” [laughs loudly] Of course, it’s by a male writer and she ends with a suicide. But aside from that, I was supposed to look real happy. It took a while for the faculty to reeducate themselves.
KURNICK:
As women students developed more and more classes at Sonoma State, they also fought to make the campus more supportive of their lives. J.J. says men would bring their dogs to school, and that after some people were bit, the campus installed kennels people could check their dogs into during class. For a time, Sonoma State had dog daycare, but not childcare.
WILSON:
So what we did is take our babies–I didn’t have any, but people who had children–and put signs on ’em saying, “We’ll bite you if you don’t give us a place.” And the next day we had a trailer next to our women’s studies trailer, which was a childcare, and we’ve had childcare ever since.
KURNICK:
J.J. also remembers women creating a pop-up do-it-yourself divorce clinic in Stevenson Hall to spare people the cost of hiring a lawyer. She remembers women standing in long lines that surrounded the building.
WILSON:
The line extended around Stevenson, around Stevenson–
KURNICK:
Demand was so high that campus administrators got fed up.
WILSON:
They sort of said, “I think you’ll have to meet off campus.” Because it was cluttering up the scenery!
KURNICK:
J.J., now 89 years old, still lives in Sonoma County. Her home doubles as a feminist space called the Sitting Room Library. In the garage, she keeps much of the ephemera from the early days of women’s studies at Sonoma State.
[Ambient audio fades in, recorded in Wilson’s garage. Wilson speaks with her old friend and former colleague, Ann Neel. Both show Kurnick ephemera from the early days of Women’s Studies at Sonoma State.]
WILSON: Let’s see what this is. Let’s see what’s in there. Open that up and see. Ann, open this up and see. [reading] J.J. –
NEEL: [reading a folder’s label] Early Women’s Studies Handouts
WILSON: Oh good.
[Ambient audio fades underneath Kurnick’s narration. Wilson and Neel’s voices can be heard, but not their words.]
KURNICK:
A flyer from Spring 1976 lists almost 40 different classes, most taught by student instructors. Topics include “Survival as a Mother,” “Seminar on Rape,” “Lesbian Relationships,” “Women and Weight,” and–I’m partial to this one–a radio production class called “Women on the Air.”
WILSON:
Sonoma State had been a seed farm and we used that as our metaphor. That’s what we claimed we were still doing, is planting seeds.
KURNICK:
Before it became a state college, the original site of Sonoma State was an onion farm nestled in the rolling hills of Sonoma County. Throughout the 1960s and into the 70s, the school had a reputation for being radical – a stark contrast to the more conservative, agricultural community that surrounded it.
WILSON:
It felt like education, it did all right. I learned more from the students than they learned from me, I’m sure.
KURNICK:
Over time, the seeds J.J. and the students planted blossomed into a department with four full-time faculty. In addition to Women’s and Gender Studies, they also offer a Queer Studies minor. While J.J. feels optimistic that the lessons of women’s and gender studies now pervade every other department on campus, current professor Charlene Tung says women’s and gender studies is still a critical field – in its own right.
TUNG:
It’s the study of how gender as a construct, you know, is implicated in all of our power structures in our society. So, socially, legally, politically–and how it intersects, you know, centrally intersects with other social constructs like race and class, ethnicity, disability, gender identity, sexuality. It’s about, you know, social justice and creating better futures for people. And that isn’t done in every academic department.
KURNICK:
[interviewing Tung] What will be lost if this department closes?
TUNG:
Hm. My gosh, the long activist history of bringing WGS into being. You know, that to me is such a tragic loss. It’s so different than any of the other academic programs.
KURNICK:
Charlene points to other departments being cut at Sonoma State, like philosophy and economics, which she says did not have to fight their way into existence at the school.
TUNG:
They were assumed to be important. Um, and yes, it’s a loss. ’cause now they’re assumed not to be important. But they don’t have that activist history of people creating the curriculum itself, right? Meeting off campus to, to just gather, to talk about, in this case, you know, women’s issues or for ethnic studies, right? Like, that’s a long legacy, the shoulders that we stand upon. To me, that’s quite a loss.
KURNICK:
Xochilt Martinez Balladares was a senior in her last semester when the cuts were announced. She says that early in her time studying at SSU, Charlene’s support kept her in school when Xochilt’s responsibilities at home almost broke her.
MARTINEZ BALLADARES:
She ended up reaching out to me. And I don’t trust very easily and I don’t–I like to feel like I can carry the world by myself, especially as a mom. And so I don’t know what it was about the genuine support that I felt when I spoke to Charlene that I kind of like, sat there and told her everything that was happening and she was like, “Oh my goodness.”
KURNICK:
Charlene and Xochilt made a game plan together that she says kept her from dropping out. Today, Xochilt works on campus in a program that provides support to first generation and low income students. We spoke, on campus, in the Women’s and Gender Studies lounge, which brought up a wave of emotion for her.
MARTINEZ BALLADARES:
I was walking up this hallway and it just kind of like, not to be dramatic, it just feels like death. It feels empty.
KURNICK:
[interviewing Martinez Balladares] If this department does disappear from campus, what will be lost?
MARTINEZ BALLADARES:
A lot. You’re not gonna have professors who teach you not just curriculum, but teach you the foundation of life, of social justice, of how to fight for your rights. I have a niece who just turned 18 who has really wanted to follow in my footsteps, and I can’t imagine if she ends up here at Sonoma State without this department.
KURNICK:
Today, Charlene is the only remaining faculty in the Women’s and Gender Studies department, teaching the final two semesters of classes… unless the program is restored.
KURNICK:
[interviewing Tung] What is it like to come to work right now?
TUNG:
[Laughs softly, with a wince] It’s a little bit like torturing yourself. Yeah. I mean, I love the students–my students are wonderful. And I have a slew of interns that I’m working with, so that part of it is great. Uh, walking on the campus is like, it’s hideous–it’s horrific, frankly. Emotionally? No.
KURNICK:
When the proposed cuts were announced in January, 2025, students, alumni and faculty from across all of the impacted programs protested. More than 1,000 people gathered on campus for a rally.
ARCHIVAL AUDIO FROM PROTEST ON JANUARY 30, 2025:
ONE VOICE: [leading a chant on a megaphone] When we fight?
CROWD: We win!
ONE VOICE: When we fight?
CROWD: We win! [Cheering]
SHAWN RAMUS:
We could not just accept this.
KURNICK:
Shawn Ramus was in his last semester at Sonoma State this past spring, majoring in Women’s and Gender Studies and running a WGS club on campus with Xochilt.
RAMUS:
We were going to put up the resistance and, and do the education to talk to legislators, to talk to the faculty and the administration and to the public about why this WGS department is so important.
KURNICK:
Within two days, Shawn was meeting on Zoom and texting with a network of people who all care deeply about the department. The group organized a meeting with the interim president of the university, they organized a letter-writing campaign, connected with press and gave speeches at legislative hearings while they wore matching shirts that said, “This is what a feminist looks like.”
MARTINEZ BALLADARES:
We’re rowdy, so we’re gonna make sure we’re seen and that’s a positive thing, that’s something I’m really looking forward to… continuing this fight.
KURNICK:
The fight isn’t over. Sonoma State has come into a lot of money – California backpedaled on a budget reduction to the whole state university system and Sonoma State got $90 million in one-time funds. In November, the university announced a new president. Activists say they will continue to advocate for the restoration of Women’s and Gender Studies with the new leadership – inspired by the generation who fought to create the program in the first place. For North Gate Radio, I’m Chelsea Kurnick.
MUSIC TRANSITION, fades under…
DORAME as HOST:
More than fifty years ago, Native activists in the Bay Area occupied Alcatraz Island.
(archival news clip: “7 federal officials launched a full scale attack on the island of Alcatraz, today, amid reports there were 14 Indians on the island trying to take it over.” )
DORAME:
These activists, including Native Students from UC Berkeley, demanded space, resources, and awareness of the federal government’s treatment of Native people. The island’s physical space – its geography and visibility was central to their strategy. To do that, they invoked a federal treaty signed in 1868 that called for unused federal land to be returned to Native people. But, the story doesn’t end there.
(Sounds from Sunrise Gathering entrance)
DORAME:
It’s 5:30 in the morning, I’m bundled in warm layers and squeezed between passengers on the top deck of a ferry to Alcatraz Island. This is the last boat out for the Indigenous Peoples’ Day Sunrise Gathering, an annual event hosted by the International Indian Treaty Council. I came here as a journalist, but also as a Navajo graduate student at UC Berkeley. I’m wondering how current Native students at Cal see Alcatraz as part of their legacy and how their fight for space and recognition continues today.
(Sounds from Sunrise Gathering speakers: Stand up fight back, that’s what we’re here for! This is not one day, one hour, one sunrise, THIS IS A WAY OFF LIFE!!!)
DORAME:
This is my first time on the island, a place I’ve heard so much about. Hundreds of people, mostly families, are gathered on the South side around a large fire. Singers and dancers keep the space full of energy.
(Sounds from Sunrise Gathering drummers)
DORAME:
Back in 1969, LaNada War Jack, a Shoshone-Bannock student and one of the first Native American students at UC Berkeley helped organize the occupation of Alcatraz.
LANADA WAR JACK:
I stayed out there. And I would write my papers on the island and have all the silence in the world…
DORAME:
It lasted 19 months before being shut down by the federal government. War Jack was one of a few activists who maintained a presence on the island for most of that time.
WAR JACK:
You know, it worked out really good, I’d write my papers and then catch a sailboat and go to the Berkeley marina, get all cleaned up and then go check into my classes.
DORAME:
And War Jack comes back for the sunrise gatherings every year.
DORAME (interviewing War Jack):
What’s it feel like to be on the island for you? Like does it bring up any feelings?
WAR JACK:
It just feels really good to be out there and, and then to think and know that this is where you used to live and what you used to do. So, It seems like long ago, but then… yesterday.
DORAME:
That was almost 60 years ago. And the occupation’s legacy lives on. It brought Native voices onto a national stage and continues to inform the experience of Native students at UC Berkeley today.
HAILEY THOMAS:
When I got my acceptance into Berkeley was the only acceptance that I cried on.
DORAME:
Hailey Thomas is a first-year Navajo student from Lukachugai, Arizona on the Navajo reservation. She’s an undergrad at Cal studying Electrical Engineering & Computer Science. Hailey told me part of her decision to come here was the active and vocal Native student presence on campus.
THOMAS:
People were very well known for protesting here at Berkeley, you know, speaking their voices and not being ashamed of what they believed in. I really do wanna be like a student, like a native student leader here, you know, I probably want to run for Senate one day.
DORAME:
While UC Berkeley Native students have long been politically active, representation in campus-wide student government – through elected senate positions – is a more recent development. For two years in a row, now, a Native student has held a seat in the campus senate. Phenocia Bauerle, the current Director of Native American Student Development and the Native Community Center says she can’t recall that happening on campus in her time as a student or employee.
PHENOCIA BAUERLE:
It’s the first time in a decade for sure, and that has a very specific kind of power here on campus.
DORAME:
Senators oversee a twelve million dollar budget. They create and vote on campus policies and advocate for students and student programming. Native student leadership wants a permanent space on campus that will fit their growing numbers. Just five years ago, the small office Phenocia now works in…was that space.
BAUERLE:
You would be surprised how many people we fit in here. Um, we fit like…
DORAME (RECORDED INTERVIEW):
Literally just this room?
BAUERLE:
This room. And we all just crammed in here. I’d be having meetings and students would come in and be crying.
DORAME:
Today, Cal’s Native community has a student center that’s bigger than Phenocia’s office. But, it exists under an agreement with the Graduate Assembly that runs out this year. Students who frequent the center told me it’s in an older building that’s expensive to maintain and that there are no private rooms to hold classes or meetings. Reg Macarro is a member of the Pechanga Band of Indians and of Red Lake Band of Ojibwe. He’s a second year Native student currently serving as a campus Senator.
REG MACARRO:
I’m studying Conservation and Resource Studies, and minoring in Native American Studies.
DORAME:
Reg says the current Native center has a number of limitations. He says it’s not fit for cultural programming.
MACARRO:
And also after hours, the space has to be reserved. Someone always has to be stewarding and someone always has to be watching. It’s like, I don’t know… as much as I love to call this space like ours, it never really feels like it’s fully ours.
DORAME:
The students who occupied Alcatraz in 1969 took direct action and demanded visibility and spaces to call their own. For Native students like Reg, today’s efforts look different – students tell me their advocacy happens through meetings, policies, and resolutions.
MACARRO:
It’s very slow though. It’s always really slow, it’s very bureaucratic and you have to go through so many people to just get one thing done and it takes so much time and it’s kind of deterring people from wanting to take those avenues of doing all this paperwork cuz it’s like, who wants to do that, really???
DORAME:
I reached out to UC Berkeley for comment about these student concerns. A spokesperson from the chancellor’s office told me in an e-mail that university administrators knew the current building had significant limitations from the start. The same limitations the Graduate Student Assembly experienced when they used the building before it became the Native Community Center. They also said that when Native students and faculty were asked what the community needed most – offices, classrooms and meeting spaces – they knew the current building didn’t have those things. There have been ongoing problems with the heat and hot water in the building, but a new HVAC system was installed this fall 2025 semester. Administrators say they are working with the Graduate Assembly to extend an agreement that keeps the center open while they search for a permanent space.
(Sounds back up from Alcatraz Sunrise Gathering: “Alright here we go, it’s round-dance time!”)
DORAME:
Back at Alcatraz, the sun was finally coming up over the horizon. Attendees are all invited into the circle for a community rounddance. I see Native students wearing gear from colleges all around the Bay Area, rounddancing, laughing and chatting at the edges of the circle. Remember Hailey Thomas? The undergrad who told me she cried when she got her UC Berkeley acceptance? We first met at this Sunrise Gathering.
THOMAS:
I felt very blessed in that moment, you know, to be Native.
DORAME:
I did too. But, I can’t stop thinking about the Native students who woke up here to watch the sunrise, day after day after day during the occupation…and we still find ourselves here today. Even as bureaucracy slows things down, students keep showing up, pressing for space on campus and asserting their place.
(round-dance music up and cross fades with other music for transition)
MUSIC TRANSITION
DORAME
…Our team of reporters asked people across UC Berkeley’s campus if they think student activism still has the power to make change…
Here’s some of what we heard:
[campus sounds, montage of student voices]
- Student activism can be very powerful in that it’s often centered in these knowledge creating hubs like UC Berkeley. We are an R1 institution, so we’re dispelling so much knowledge and have so much influence over public understanding…
- The way that you choose to mobilize, definitely has an impact, a really wide impact on the American political consciousness, as a whole.
- With the spread of social media, I think student activism is definitely more prominent, especially when we see a lot of information online. But I also think that leads to a lot of polarization on campus
- To me, I feel like, in general, there’s a big sentiment of political nihilism lately. Despite a lot of struggle, nothing ends up really getting through.
- So, I’d say a lot of activism is actually self servient. Like people wanna feel good about themselves, so they do this. But, um, I could also see the opposite point, you feel like you’re contributing to a cause, I don’t know, its very multi-faceted…
- Organizing is very important because when you are silent, you allow things to continue to happen.
(music transition)
DORAME:
One instructor here at Cal refused to stay silent about the ongoing bombardment and destruction of Gaza — and inspired students to speak out too. Not the students you’d expect to step into activism, though: STEM majors who already spend 6 to 10 hours a day studying. Yet, this year, political action and engagement among Cal’s STEM students has surged. In department halls typically scrubbed of politics, there is a new rallying cry: Innovation for social good– not genocide. Reporter Akua Parker has our story.
AKUA PARKER:
November 17, 2023. Inside a sprawling lecture hall, Peyrin Kao stands before an introductory computer science class. He begins to reiterate that what he is about to say is not representative of the opinions of his co-instructor, the department, or the University of California, Berkeley.
PEYRIN KAO [archival]:
I have a couple things I want to say and I just want to make it clear that like this is only on my behalf so like no one on 61B staff knows about this, like no one actually knows about this period.
PARKER:
After emphasizing that students are free to leave, Kao projects six photographs depicting scenes of protests for Palestine.
KAO [archival]:
So…I don’t know if you all have been following the news but there’s been a situation going on in Gaza. The news stories that come out just break my heart, man. They’ve been bombing hospitals, they’ve been bombing schools, and they’ve been killing journalists, children, women.
PARKER:
Before a class of 800 computer science students, many of whom will be vying for high-powered tech positions, Kao plunges in, emphasizing the power of coding, of software engineering, and its role in manufacturing US weapons.
KAO [archival]:
I want you to remember that this overall struggle for justice, for equality, it is something that we are all in together. And, when you go out and when you go out with this power that we’ve given you, the power to, again, really change the world with the ability to program and construct software that you’ve been given, I just want to remind you that that power comes with a lot of responsibility.
PARKER:
It’s rare for lecturers and professors to openly advocate for Palestine, or openly call on the university to divest from Israel. If this happens, the call typically comes from those in the humanities…or social sciences….or the arts…
JANICE:
I think in general it’s very hard to get STEM students to be involved in activism. I think it’s definitely a field that feels apolitical when it really isn’t.
PARKER:
That is Janice. They were one of the 800 computer science students in the auditorium where Peyrin Kao talked about the destruction of Gaza and ethical technology in November of 2023.
JANICE:
I’ve never done organizing in STEM before. I think everything has been outside the STEM context.
PARKER:
The day Fall classes began at UC Berkeley, On August 27th, 2025, Peyrin Kao announced he was launching a hunger strike.
KAO [archival]:
The past 691 days, we have witnessed Israel carry out a mass starvation and mass murder campaign of Palestinians in Gaza. So effective today to protest this genocide, I am launching an open-ended hunger strike, and I call on all CS tech workers, students, and educators to do everything they can to stop the atrocities happening with our taxpayer dollars and supported by the high tech weapons that we help develop.
JANICE:
When I heard about him going on hunger strike this year, that was definitely very inspiring to me.
PARKER:
Less than a month into his hunger strike, news broke that UC Berkeley gave the Trump administration the names of 160 faculty members and students as part of an investigation into “alleged antisemitic incidents.” Peyrin Kao’s name was on the list.
JANICE:
He was retaliated against for his previous actions, but decided to not stop. And so that got me to really want to be more involved.
PARKER:
When Kao launched his hunger strike, Berkeley Electrical Engineering and Computer Science students launched EECS 4 Palestine. They tabled every week, they hosted community events and teach-ins, where they gave on-the-ground updates…
[TEACH IN SCENE AUDIO:] “okay, the reason we’re all here…the US/Israeli genocide has gone on for 734 days…(fades under)”
PARKER:
…like this one from this past November, where a classroom of 30 students heard the latest from Palestine, and learned the history of divestment.
[TEACH IN SCENE AUDIO CONTINUES…:]
In Palestine, as we speak, Israel is continuing its mass displacement campaign in the West Bank where settlers and soldiers are demolishing homes, burning fields, uprooting trees, and attacking or mass kidnapping Palestinians.
PARKER:
At the teach-in, Stephen, a CS undergrad notes that computer science has been deliberately cleansed of politics and ethical responsibility. He explains to a class of his peers that recent advancements in the STEM field here in the US– artificial intelligence, drone technology, surveillance software– play a central role in the ongoing bombardment and occupation of Palestinians.
STEPHEN:
What we can do in STEM, what we can do in computer science and physics is incredibly powerful. And these companies will use it to do very, very evil things, but the power of that technology still exists. And we can use it to fight back against them.
PARKER:
The umbrella of the EECS 4 Palestine club was becoming too small to encompass its growing base. They began attracting people like Abi – who had never been involved in campus activism before.
ABI:
I was really excited by Peyrin’s hunger strike. I think that that brought so much energy and made people really motivated and that was really exciting.
PARKER:
The group rebranded to STEM 4 Palestine, reflective of the next phase of their larger movement and the diversity of their base.
[Chanting]
‘Disclose, divest, we will not stop we will not rest’ chants
PARKER:
They continue the legacy of student activism on Berkeley’s campus in a particularly modern way– collective action at the intersection of tech. On the steps of Sproul Plaza in the winter of 1964, an impassioned Mario Savio foreshadowed much of what STEM 4 Palestine is struggling against… and fighting for.
[archival audio of MARCO SAVIO]:
”There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”
PARKER:
In early December, news broke that UC Berkeley had suspended Kao for 6 months without pay. UC Berkeley’s executive vice chancellor and provost Benjamin Hermalin stated – in a letter – that QUOTE: “Mr. Kao misused the classroom by distorting the instructional process in a manner which deviates from the responsibilities inherent in academic freedom, an action that constitutes a violation of Regents Policy 2301.” Part of that policy talks about how classrooms should not be used for political indoctrination.Hermalin went on to say Kao’s hunger strike was, quote, “no different from those of an instructor who repeatedly wore a t-shirt when teaching that had on it a very visible political symbol or a picture of a political candidate.” I reached out to the Vice Chancellor’s office and was told in an e-mail that they do not comment on confidential personnel matters.
STEPHEN ROSENBAUM:
What I think is really happening here is the pressure on UC Berkeley and on UC in general to to bend to the current administration’s interpretation of what’s acceptable free speech on campus.
PARKER:
Stephen Rosenbaum is a civil rights and anti-discrimination law expert. He’s currently a visiting scholar at Cal and a lecturer at Berkeley Law. He notes that Kao didn’t engage in advocacy during class time, not to mention…
ROSENBAUM:
… the ability to wear a t-shirt with a, with, with a, a phrase on it, with a political expression, not that many years ago on campus, uh, one would wear a red ribbon to indicate solidarity with the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Um, all kinds of buttons and badges have been worn. And the key, uh, US Supreme Court case several decades ago talked about high school students wearing a black arm band to protest the war in Vietnam. These kinds of symbols have been long protected in the educational environment from K 12 through post-secondary education. So to talk about the hunger strike as akin to a t-shirt, that’s a fine analogy. And I’d say he’s welcome to wear the t-shirt!
PARKER:
In response to Kao’s suspension, STEM4Palestine launched their own hunger strike. I spoke with Biology student Leela Mehta-Harwitz on December 10, 2025 – just hours into the strike.
LEELA MEHTA-HARWITZ:
I think not only is it totally unjustified, it’s basically a fear tactic used to repress even more academics. We’re seeing it all over the country, including in California, and I think this is just another ridiculous step. Um, and if you read the documents that they released, um, anyone can see that it’s just a completely trumped up charge.
PARKER:
For his part, Kao says while not on campus – he will continue to support the students involved in STEM4Palestine….
KAO:
…and to participate in whatever conversations and, you know, critical thinking that they would like to have. And as someone who lives in the United States, I will continue to exercise my first amendment right to talk about Palestine. You know, they say that. We’re a country of free speech and that the UC loves its free speech and its academic freedom, but that doesn’t seem to extend to Palestine.
PARKER:
Leela thinks Kao’s suspension might have the unintended effect of galvanizing students.
MEHTA-HARWITZ:
I do already see that so many, especially computer science students, but all sorts of students are really energized and mobilized by the suspension in the news of it because they didn’t think that would happen to someone who’s so beloved as Peyrin.So, at the very least, I think our future involves a much larger base. I’m very excited for that.
PARKER:
For North Gate Radio, I’m Akua Parker
[STEM FOR PALESTINE CHANTING: When GAZA IS under attack, what do we do – STAND UP FIGHT BACK!]
DORAME/HOST: Another movement is gaining ground on Cal’s campus – but its priorities are very different.
ARCHIVAL AUDIO: [BAGPIPES] Recorded voice of Charlie Kirk: My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic. [BAGPIES AND KIRK VO FADE UNDER HOST]
DORAME:
A college dropout, Kirk founded Turning Point USA, a growing conservative campus movement with a UC Berkeley chapter. Kirk was shot and killed this September at a campus stop in Utah. Despite the loss of its founder, the group still sent speakers to Berkeley, the final stop of a college tour that was meant to feature Kirk. Northgate Radio’s Joni Binder reports on Turning Point USA’s Berkeley chapter to explore what it’s like to engage in conservative activism on a historically liberal campus.
JONI BINDER:
Charlie Kirk founded Turning Point USA to advance his conservative Christian beliefs on the national stage. Engaging students was vital to growing his movement. One of his most attention-grabbing tactics was public debates on college campuses. This has an allure for John Paul Leon, a college junior double majoring in Economics and Philosophy.
JOHN PAUL LEON:
The thing that I love to do the most is have the exchange of ideas, so being able to use it as a platform to spread ideas that I believe are good ideas has been something that I value the most about Turning Point USA,
BINDER:
A devout Catholic, Leon is especially passionate about…
LEON:
Spreading the pro-life message, which I think is the number one issue facing the nation.
BINDER:
Leon struggled with the term “activist” and wasn’t initially interested in broadcasting his beliefs, so didn’t join Turning Point USA as soon as he got to Cal.
LEON:
I wasn’t involved in my freshman year, largely out of, you know, fear of, uh, social is- isolation. I didn’t want people to know that I was conservative and then deprive me of certain opportunities,
BINDER:
As his faith and conservative values deepened, Leon eventually decided to learn more about Turning Point USA during his sophomore year. He started attending meetings and spending time with the group as they tabled on campus. In December, last year…
LEON:
We had a sign up that said, “Kids can’t change their gender.”
BINDER:
And, someone came up to their table…
[EXT. CAMPUS SOUNDS, VANTAGE POINT TPUSA BOOTH AND TABLE]
LEON:
…with a carton of tomato juice and just kind of poured it all over our sign and our booth and at our members.
[Archival Recording of LEON]
“Behold the tolerant left.”
BINDER:
A video of the incident was posted on Instagram and went viral. Leon soon found himself on Fox News.
[END CAMPUS SOUNDS]
Archival audio from FOXNews Host Trace Gallagher:
It’s amazing because you went viral for your comeback phrase at the time they poured the tomato ju- juice which was “Behold the tolerant left.” Nicely done.
LEON:
If I’m already viral with 60-plus million people who have seen the video, there’s no point in staying silent anymore. And so I just have been aggressive ever since there about my views.
BINDER:
Today, John Paul Leon is the president of UC Berkeley’s chapter of Turning Point USA.
Recorded Live Studio Interview with Leon and Binder:
So, I read an interview with you and you likened, uh, being a conservative on campus with, like, being a gay man in the 1950s.
From interview, LEON:
I use that line a lot actually.
From interview, BINDER:
Do you?
From interview, LEON:
Mm-hmm.
From interview, BINDER:
What I know that gay men didn’t have in the fifties was any political power.
From interview, LEON:
We have the power, nationally, of course, there’s no denying that. Uh, it’s more like a tongue in cheek type of comment on the local level. I mean, we don’t have the power at UC Berkeley.
(end studio interview recording)
BINDER:
Leon’s local leadership led to an opportunity to host Charlie Kirk’s final stop of Turning Point USA’s 2025 campus tour.
LEON:
In the middle of working on that, uh, I get a text message from Turning Point USA being like, we’re gonna send in Frank Turek and Rob Schneider to join him and I was just thinking, wow, this is going to be the biggest event in Berkeley, uh, history. But of course the unfortunate news came on,
Archival news audio from Utah Valley State Shooting, from The Telegraph, with dramatic music:
Do you, do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last ten years? Counting or not counting gang violence? Great [SOUND OF GUNSHOT, CROWD SCREAMING] (fade under)
BINDER:
Charlie Kirk was fatally shot at Utah Valley University on September 10th. Ultimately, Turning point’s leadership decided that the campus tour would continue, without Kirk, but in his honor. The UC Berkeley event would not be canceled.
LEON:
We have Frank Turek and Rob Schneider, who are still very much passionate about the movement and about sharing Charlie Kirk’s message.
BINDER:
It happened on November 10th at Zellerbach hall. Frank Turek and Rob Schneider showed up and Leon was the host.
[AMBIENT ROOM NOISE, AUDIENCE SOUNDS AND AMPLIFIED ROCK MUSIC, FROM ZELLERBACH HALL]
Before they took the stage, I met Ruby Fremouw, 18, who came in from Vacaville.
Recorded at Zellerbach, with crowd noise, BINDER:
Tell me how you first discovered Charlie Kirk.
RUBY FREMOUW:
I was just scrolling on YouTube and I ended up finding a video of him at one of the college campuses, and I just fell in love with everything he was saying. It was so honorable. But he also approached everything with so much love; everything had a foundation of truth, which I believe is the Bible.
BINDER:
How does Turning Point connect you to politics?
FREMOUW:
I’ve switched from it’s right versus left, Republican versus Democrat, to truth versus evil.
[END INT. ZELLERBACH SOUNDS; BEGIN EXT. PROTEST SOUNDS. HELICOPTERS, LOUD BANGING, STREET SOUNDS]
BINDER:
While this event was happening inside Zellerbach Hall, a counter protest was heating up on the sidewalk, outside. Protester Ryan Dalzell says he once followed Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA.
RYAN DALZELL:
It made me upset that it took me so long to sort of break free from that propaganda. Seeing the actual damage that TPUSA and all these other conservative think tank grifters like, you know, Daily Wire, Prager U, Young America’s Foundation, the stuff that they’ve done, you know, in radicalizing young men like me, just within the last few years. It’s, it’s absolutely sickening.
[END EXT. SOUNDS]
BINDER:
Back inside Zellerbach Hall, it was John Paul Leon’s turn to speak – on stage, in front of a packed house.
Recorded in Zellerbach, LEON from stage:
The sad truth is the left are not your friends. They will mock and dehumanize you. Just so they can laugh at your corpse all while cheering in the name of social justice. And to all those protestors outside, I have one thing to say. You have lost. Their goal is to desert the crowd, silence those who disagree and destroy any ounce of conservatism that they can get their filthy paws on.
[Crowd member: “Amen.”]
But you know what? They are not going to stop us.
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE, fades out]
BINDER:
While Leon’s speech inside Zellerbach Hall condemned the left, the protestors outside called out Turning Point USA for spreading misinformation, their stance on LGBTQ issues, and for silencing and canceling its critics.
BINDER:
The organization has both a school board and Professor Watchlist. Turning Point encourages followers to report educators who teach subjects on issues that quote ‘advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.
UC Berkeley Professor KEITH FELDMAN, from studio interview:
So in 2021, I got an alert. That I appeared on this, on this watch list.
BINDER V/O:
U.C. Berkeley Professor Keith Feldman teaches Ethnic Studies and is the author of A Shadow over Palestine: The Imperial Life of Race in America. He’s on that Professor Watchlist, tagged with ‘terror supporter,’ ‘racial ideology,’ and, with something that pained him and his family in particular, ‘antisemitism.’ When he initially discovered he was on the list…
[STUDIO INTERVIEW BINDER/FELDMAN]
FELDMAN:
It was Jar, uh, jarring then and it’s jarring now. With family who are survivors of the Shoah, with family who were lost in the Shoah as someone who, um, is deeply engaged in, um. anti-racist work, uh, and solidarity work.
BINDER from recorded interview with FELDMAN:
There are several people, your colleagues, not necessarily from your department, but who are on the list, who politely… declined.. to speak to me. I was surprised that there was so much resistance. Does that surprise you?
FELDMAN:
The stakes feel really high right now.
BINDER from recorded interview with Feldman:
So why are you here?
FELDMAN:
If we’re committed to something like, a flourishing, multiracial democracy, the university and this university, uh, this public university. plays a role in, um, cultivating, a public to practice multiracial democracy to its fullest.
[END STUDIO INTERVIEW RECORDING W/FELDMAN]
BINDER:
Turning Point USA describes itself as a champion of “free speech” and an “open marketplace of ideas,” values that, on paper, align with Feldman’s. At the same time, the group’s Watchlists publicly identify professors and others whose views differ from the organization’s. There have been media reports of professors receiving threats and harassment as a result of being named. I asked Leon if he sees any inconsistencies with the organization’s values and these watchlists.
LEON:
I think that free speech acts as a marketplace. And so, if someone wants to exercise their free speech to teach an intro to communism class, then we could exercise our free speech to say that this professor is teaching a communism class. But I wouldn’t see it as necessarily an egregious violation of free speech. And it, it is something that is useful being a conservative on campus to know about.
[MUSIC TRANSITION]
BINDER:
Since Kirk’s death, Leon notes that fellow conservatives on UC Berkeley’s campus have felt more comfortable outwardly expressing their religious and political views. He claims his Turning Point USA chapter membership has recently doubled, with about one hundred active members.
For Northgate Radio, I’m Joni Binder.
[MUSIC FADES]
DORAME/HOST:
Change begins not only in classrooms and labs but on university quads, student lounges, and off-campus, in cafes and bars. Student activists put in long hours on top of everything else in their lives.They’re doing it as the President backs tougher administrative and law-enforcement responses to dissent. And they’re doing it under constant surveillance. Reporter Brenda Yamilex Vasquez wondered where student activists go to relieve their stress? She found that in Berkeley, one of those places is the Starry Plough, an Irish Pub that local and international artists and activists have frequented for decades.
VASQUEZ:
When you walk into the Starry Plough – You are greeted with posters from different decades, and from different liberation movements. And, on the far back center wall a poem by Irish revolutionary, James Connolly…It reads…“No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression. If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses…
ROSE HUGHES:
(continues reading poem)…they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, fears and hopes, the loves and hatreds engendered by the struggle…
SHAHIN NAIMA:
(continues reading poem) …until movement is marked by the joyous defiant singing of revolutionary songs. It lacks one of the most distinctive marks of a popular revolutionary movement it is the dogma of a few, and not the faith of the multitude.
VASQUEZ:
That was Rose Hughes and Shahin Naima, Mother and son, 2nd and 3rd generation owners of the Starry Plough.
HUGHES:
The Starry Plough was founded on the message of revolution and the people, United will never be defeated. That’s what I grew up with.
VASQUEZ:
Rose’s parents, Shahin’s grandparents, both Irish immigrants, helped start the Starry Plough, in 1973, to send money and resources back to Ireland to support political prisoners.
HUGHES:
And then there was just so much happening in, uh, Central America and South America. That this place became a hub to support the families and the people in their struggles.
NAIMA:
I think the quote kind of brings it all together without songs or music and community, revolutions basically can’t happen.
SOPHI BUSTAMANTE:
I just remember walking in and immediately getting the sense of like, oh, like this is my scene.
VASQUEZ:
Meet Sophi Bustamante, a 24-year-old San Francisco State University student.
BUSTAMANTE:
The vibe was just so good for like, I think what I needed at the time, which was a sense that people do still care about these issues that are affecting not just themselves, but others. Just like the decor, the people, everything about it just screams that. literally the second I walked in.
VASQUEZ:
Sophie was fed up with budget cuts, tuition spikes, and faculty cuts at San Francisco State.
BUSTAMANTE:
And so I was like, well, this is a, like a universal issue with three big schools.
VASQUEZ:
SF State, University of San Francisco, and UC Berkeley. So, Sophi attempted to organize students from all three schools and they made Zines as an effort to show up for one another and stand in community.
BUSTAMANTE:
That’s where the Starry Plough honestly played a huge role is like we were granted a space here, to make our zines and to just hang out
VASQUEZ:
While she appreciates the time and space to be together, Sophi says she was also disappointed that more students from UC Berkeley didn’t show up to participate.
BUSTAMANTE:
During the freedom of speech movement at Berkeley, like, tens of thousands of students showed up for that. And I was like, you know what? People right now are not in a place where they’re going to come out and show up to, I guess, stand up for each other right now, but apparently thousands upon thousands of people will show up for a good time
VASQUEZ: (interviewing Bustamante)
So would you say that fun is a key element to activism? Incorporating it?
BUSTAMANTE:
Yes. But like. Intentional and restorative fun. Like, um, I don’t know the exact context, and I don’t know the exact quote, but when the AIDS epidemic happened, you protested by day and you danced away the fear by night.
VASQUEZ:
Sophi is referring to a quote by Dan Savage, an LGBTQ activist and journalist,”During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night.The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for… Keep fighting, keep dancing.”
BUSTAMANTE:
The people that we are up against, they naturally just run on all these like really, really toxic attributes. But if you’re someone that wants to see community, that wants to see acceptance, that, like, wants to see everyone thrive, you cannot fuel yourself on that toxicity. You have to fuel yourself on good things. Sometimes you just need a moment of connection with someone else to remind you that you’re not alone and that there is a reason you show up every day. And it’s not just for yourself, it’s for the people around you.
[Irish music playing]
VASQUEZ:
Just about every night at the Starry Plough, there’s an event you can go to, if you need to recharge your student activist batteries and feel a sense of community. Here’s the owner, Shahin, again…
SHAHIN NAIMA:
We got Sunday night Irish music, Monday Irish dancing, Tuesday open mic, Wednesday’s poetry, and then Thursday is funky jazz dance night.
(more Irish music in the clear, fades down)
Yeah, I’m happy, I’m glad we can at least create a platform for people to sing and dance and express themselves however they, they wish to do so
VASQUEZ:
For North Gate radio, I am Brenda Yamilex Vasquez
[more Irish music up… and fades down under credits]
DORAME/HOST:
And, that’s it for this episode of North Gate Radio. I’m your host, Dinee Dorame. Special thanks to Lylah Schmedel Permanna who came up with the theme for today’s show and was our lead producer. Thank you to Chris Hoff for technical instruction and Rick Johnson for technical assistance. Thanks also to Eli Cohen for help with mixing. This show was produced in the audio program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of journalism under the editorial supervision and guidance of professor Shereen Marisol Meraji.
Individual Stories From Show
Credits
Host: Dinée Dorame
Reporters (in order of appearance): Lylah Schmedel-Permanna, Chelsea Kurnick, Dinée Dorame, Akua Parker, Joni Binder, Brenda Yamilex Vasquez
Air Date
January 2026