UC Berkeley’s top leader on Tuesday will face an influential congressional committee that is aligned with President Trump’s political goal of reshaping higher education by punishing campuses he sees both as bastions of leftist ideologies and as institutions that have tolerated anti-Jewish hate.
Chancellor Rich Lyons’ appearance marks a significant moment for the university, which is under multiple federal investigations over allegations it has violated the civil rights of Jewish students and faculty. The committee Lyons will face has grown from relative obscurity to one of the most rattling in the wake of U.S. campus protests over the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack in Israel and Israel’s war in Gaza.
Grillings by the Republican-led group of representatives have led to the dramatic downfalls of the Harvard and University of Pennsylvania presidents and arguably contributed to the resignations of presidents from Columbia, Northwestern and Rutgers universities. The Trump administration has accused these and other mainly elite campuses of allowing antisemitism to fester amid pro-Palestinian protests since 2023.
Lyons, who became chancellor a year ago, is the first UC leader to face the House Education & Workforce Committee during the Trump presidency as the White House has moved to dismantle major parts of Harvard’s operation over antisemitism allegations and has pulled billions in research funding from it and other selective universities.
The Trump administration has also detained pro-Palestinian foreign students or canceled their visas, actions that were largely reversed after lawsuits, even though foreign students continue come under increased State Department scrutiny.
The Tuesday hearing will focus on the “role of faculty, funding, and ideology” in antisemitism.
The chancellor’s campus is one of 10 universities under investigation by a task force Trump has directed to combat campus antisemitism. The Education Department notified Lyons via letter in February that Berkeley faced a separate investigation over allegations of antisemitic incidents and posters on campus. The campus is also part of a UC-wide Department of Justice investigation into allegations of discrimination against current and prospective Jewish employees.
Lyons will appear alongside Georgetown University interim President Robert M. Groves and City University of New York Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez. All three universities have sparked controversy over their handling of pro-Palestinian encampments last year and how leaders navigated thorny questions about the line between verboten antisemitism and free speech.
In a statement, committee Chair Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) said the hearing will focus on the “underlying factors instigating antisemitic upheaval and hatred on campus.”
“Until these factors — such as foreign funding and antisemitic student and faculty groups — are addressed, antisemitism will persist on college campuses,” Walberg said. “Our committee is building on its promise to protect Jewish students and faculty while many university leaders refuse to hold agitators of this bigotry, hatred, and discrimination accountable.”
A UC Berkeley spokesperson defended the university’s actions on antisemitism before the hearing.
The campus is “committed to combating antisemitism and all forms of hate and has taken meaningful action to achieve this,” said Dan Mogulof, assistant vice chancellor for executive communications. “Chancellor Lyons looks forward to testifying before the committee to share how the campus has been investing, and continues to invest, in resources and programs designed to prevent and address antisemitism on the Berkeley campus.”
The actions, Berkeley leaders say, have included increased training on antisemitism for students, resident assistants and administrators, as well as participation in programs with the American Jewish Committee, Hillel and the American Council on Education. Last year, the campus Center for Jewish Studies and Center for Middle Eastern Studies launched the Berkeley Bridging Fellowship Program, which brings together differing voices for dialogues on Israeli and Palestinian issues.
Also last year, the university established an endowed program and chair in Palestinian and Arab studies. At the same time, some faculty, staff and students have accused Berkeley of paying more attention to campus antisemitism concerns while neglecting to equally address reports of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab discrimination.
Nearly a year ago, UC President Michael V. Drake directed chancellors at all 10 campuses to strictly enforce rules against encampments, protests that block pathways and masking that shields identities. Drake told chancellors that rights to free speech and academic freedom must not “place community members in reasonable fear for their personal safety or infringe on their civil rights.”
The zero-tolerance order — a shift from more lax allowance of activism in 2024 — led to increased security and policing enforcement at campuses, resulting in smaller and shorter protests. Faculty and students across the UC have increasingly complained that the system is stamping out pro-Palestinian free speech under pressure from Trump, who routinely maligns pro-Palestinian students as antisemitic terrorists and threatens to pull federal funding from universities that are centers of activism.
Trump and Republican allies have also broadly accused campuses of being too open to influence from foreign funding, and accused Harvard and Berkeley of not following U.S. law that requires educational institutions to annually disclose gifts valued at $250,000 or more. Those accusations have focused on connections between the Chinese government and Chinese organizations to the universities.
Harvard and Berkeley said they abide by the law.
In addition, UC and other universities have come under attack from Republicans for allowing chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine, a group founded in the 1990s by UC student Hatem Bazian, who is now a Berkeley professor.
Conservatives have accused the student group of having ties to the militant group Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group. The student group’s leaders have denied the accusations.
Many of the group’s chapters at UCs, including UCLA, have been suspended as recognized campus associations. The chapter at Berkeley remains a formal student organization. The groups, which tend to have significant Jewish populations, have also defended themselves against accusations of antisemitism.