UC Berkeley students demand professor’s suspension

Dozens of graduate students at UC Berkeley sent a starkly worded petition to campus leaders Monday demanding that a renowned architecture professor and Middle East scholar be suspended immediately for sexually harassing a student. Nezar AlSayyad, an internationally recognized academic who teaches in the architecture department and Department of City and Regional Planning, is the latest prominent faculty member at UC Berkeley found to have sexually harassed a student or colleague in violation of University of California rules, The Chronicle reported on Sunday. The next day, 74 students and three alumni from City and Regional Planning sent a petition to campus Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, the Academic Senate’s tenure committee, and other campus leaders demanding that they consider the most severe punishment available, tenure revocation. In response, administrators have called a meeting Tuesday with campus officials and College of Environmental Design leaders “to discuss all aspects of how best to protect student welfare and support their needs and interests,” a campus source said. In October, an independent investigator hired by UC Berkeley concluded that AlSayyad had spent months ingratiating himself with a graduate student before placing his hand on her upper thigh in 2013, proposing they become “close friends” and suggesting they go to Las Vegas. Students who signed the petition said they wanted to stand in solidarity with Hagberg Fisher and to express frustration with a campus process that prevents administrators from notifying students sooner about investigations into faculty misconduct. The findings and the graduate students’ strong response follow revelations this year and last about three high-profile employees at UC Berkeley — an astronomy professor, the Law School dean and a vice chancellor — who groped, kissed or touched students or colleagues. AlSayyad has also been given no courses to teach this spring, according to a source connected to the College of Environmental Design, which houses AlSayyad’s departments.