UC Berkeley's New Chancellor Aims for 'Institutional Neutrality' on Gaza Activism, Talks People's Park and Cal Athletics

Rich Lyons is reliving his college years every day at work, leading UC Berkeley, his alma mater, as its 12th chancellor.

“It’s not like I thought it was very likely. But I did start thinking, ‘Wow, that would be a crazy job,’” he said, sporting an unusually non-presidential look — faded jeans, white sneakers and a Berkeley-branded sweatshirt.

Lyons, who took office in July, was dressed for move-in day, a week before the start of the new semester, which begins Wednesday. His large office — the kind befitting the president of a flagship university — belies the personable tenor of its primary occupant.

“Why do you stay with any institution for so darn long? It’s because your values align well with what the institution is about,” he said.

Lyons was a member of Cal’s undergraduate class of 1982 and went on to become an economist. He returned to campus about a decade later to teach at the Haas School of Business, eventually becoming the school’s dean. Most recently, he led efforts to promote entrepreneurship and innovation on campus.

Lyons — who grew up in the South Bay and attended Los Altos High School — says the Silicon Valley spirit, rooted in the potential for start-ups to generate social good, is at the core of his vision for the university.

“I view this next decade as among the most positively exciting, in terms of higher education, of my lifetime,” he said. “Berkeley’s undergraduates, over the last 10 years, have produced more funded start-ups than any university in the world. It’s like we’re all entrepreneurs with the way we manage our careers and our lives. So that’s a really good development for Berkeley.”

Despite that optimism, being a university president is probably one of the hardest jobs in higher education right now. Just in the last year, three presidents of Ivy League universities have resigned over their responses to protests over Israel’s war in Gaza that rocked campuses across the country last spring.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators camped out for weeks. They echoed calls for a global cease-fire and demanded that administrators divest from companies that do business with Israel.

Tensions flared at some California campuses, like UCLA. In one incident, counter-demonstrators attacked pro-Palestinian protesters. It took police hours to intervene.

At UC Berkeley, the home of the Free Speech Movement and 1960s anti-war protests, hundreds of students rallied peacefully and eventually dismantled their encampments after reaching an agreement with the administration.

While UC Regents alone make investment-related decisions, Carol Christ, Lyons’ predecessor, said she supported a review of investments in certain industries that profit from “weapons manufacturing, mass incarceration and/or surveillance industries.”

“That discussion is actually taking place,” Lyons said. “[Christ] drew a firm line around any kind of divestment connected to Israel or Israeli companies, and that was absolutely the right thing to hold the line on.”

With the prospect of pro-Palestinian demonstrations recommencing this semester, Michael V. Drake, president of the UC system, recently directed chancellors, in a controversial move, to strictly enforce rules against encampments and protests that block hallways.

“We have to make sure people across all different kinds of needs and wants are feeling welcome at Berkeley and that they’re not being met with harassment and intimidation in their daily lives here,” Lyons said in response to the order. “These are not easy things to balance because if there’s a free speech university, it is Berkeley.”

Lyons spoke more with KQED’s Brian Watt about how he plans to navigate this challenging political moment, his thoughts on the controversy over housing at historic People’s Park, and where he stands on the future of Cal’s athletic program.

Here’s an excerpt from their conversation, edited for brevity and clarity.

Brian Watt: Activism is part of the Berkeley brand. Do you remember that being part of the culture when you were a student?

Rich Lyons: And it’s still here. So we sometimes use the phrase ‘Question the status quo,’ right? This mindset — there’s got to be a better way to do this. Oh, I love people who think that way; I really do. I thrive on that.

Conjure in your mind the president of a great private university in this country. I won’t specify anyone, but just imagine one that you’re very familiar with. And then imagine me as the president of that university standing up and saying, ‘This university, we’re all about questioning the status quo.’ Ain’t going to happen. It doesn’t mean their scholars aren’t questioning the status quo. But it’s not where they come from. It’s not their history. It’s sort of like, are you ready to say ‘question the status quo’ and stand by it? So Berkeley still says that.

Activism is probably the biggest issue on college campuses right now. How are you thinking about that as this new school year, the first of your tenure as chancellor, begins?

One of the things that’s distinguishing what we’re going through right now is if you thought about the Free Speech Movement or anti-Vietnam, a lot of those were sort of students versus the administration. Here, it’s students opposing students. It’s faculty opposing faculty. It’s staff opposing staff. And we’re up against that in society. The idea that being in Berkeley is a reflection of society.

If we think about how do we manage that? There’s actually an opportunity to lead. How do we get people talking to each other more and understanding a little bit better and empathizing a little bit more across these deep divisions, these identity divisions in many cases?

So when people ask me, ‘What are you going to do if X happens?’ it’s sort of like, OK, if X happens, are we talking about a Berkeley student? Or is X driven by an unaffiliated person who’s on the Berkeley campus? That’s a consideration. Is it designed to be intimidating and harassing? Or is it not? There are limits to free speech in this country. Inciting lawlessness is not OK under the First Amendment.

The way I think about it is there are hundreds of places on the Berkeley campus and hundreds of ways for our students to express their free speech rights. We don’t just condone that; we encourage it. So if a student is standing in front of the main gate on campus and is professing views, it’s sort of like, good on you. If they then block an opening, then the idea is you’ve just stepped into civil disobedience, which is a different thing.

One of the criticisms about the way UCLA handled its protests was that it didn’t equally protect both Jewish and pro-Palestinian students. How do you work to feel that both of those student communities feel safe on a campus like UC Berkeley?

We actually have a positive obligation under what’s called Title IX of the Civil Rights Act to make sure that students are given full access to all the educational opportunities without harassment, without intimidation. And at the same time, we have a positive obligation to allow for free speech under the First Amendment.

So I think part of it is how do we do the best that we can in a content-neutral way? That’s the key idea here. If somebody says, we’re going to allow that to happen because it feels like it’s more likely to be on the right side of history, it’s like, No! We’re not going to do that anymore. I’m moving this university in the direction of institutional neutrality.

Let’s talk a little bit about housing. Construction of a new housing project has begun at People’s Park. And there’s a lot of controversy, partly due to the history of that place. This decision predates your chancellorship. But do you think it was the right call to build housing there?

We go back to the mission. I know it sounds hokey to do that, but that’s what we do. And then you start thinking about, how do we get students who can’t afford private housing to be able to come to Berkeley when we have a housing stock at Berkeley that covers so much lower a percentage of our students than a lot of other public universities? We’re not providing the access and the excellence together that we are promising people.

So now we have an opportunity to build 1,000 more beds, to make affordable and accessible 1,000 more living situations. And were there trade-offs? Absolutely. Was it hard on the community? Absolutely. Are we going to make sure that we codify and celebrate that part of Berkeley’s history? Absolutely. And I think Berkeley made the right decision, and I’m going to continue down that path. But I recognize that this was not the right decision for everyone.

On sports, Cal has joined the Atlantic Coast Conference. That is going to require student-athletes traveling thousands of miles during an academic year to be competitive. Are you concerned about that?

They have to be [traveling]. That’s a reality. We believe we can manage it, and we’re doing everything we can to support our scholar-athletes. They’re really students first. And we’re putting a lot of investment into trying to mitigate that and support that. But it is a challenge.

Some students have recommended that “Cal Berkeley” be on the school’s athletic uniforms rather than just “Cal.” How do you feel about that? Do you feel like that’s an important distinction in terms of how people come to know the institution?

The root source of Berkeley’s reputation is fundamental research. We are known the world around because CRISPR comes out of Berkeley because immunotherapy in cancer comes out of Berkeley. That’s a UC Berkeley thing. Cal is largely historically an athletics brand. I believe what we have to end is the idea that you walk into New York City or Atlanta or name your city, and people don’t know that Cal or California is UC Berkeley. That does not serve us.

Now, are we going to force everybody into Cal or into Berkeley or into some kind of crazy permutation of the two? That’s not necessary. But for example, when I go into Memorial Stadium on a Saturday, I want people to see not just Cal, which is all appropriate and all over there, but you don’t see Berkeley in very many places. You have to really look for it. And I promise you, this fall, you will see UC Berkeley in California Memorial Stadium. We want people to understand that these are the same great institution.