The start of Saturday's Cal-USC football game was delayed by a sit-down protest from a dozen or so Cal students. The announcers didn't know what the protest was about, and I just assumed it had something to do with Israel and never bothered to check it out.
But no! It turns out the students were protesting the suspension of Ivonne del Valle, a Spanish and Portuguese professor who's both a first-generation Mexican and an expert on colonial studies.
del Valle was suspended for harassing Joshua Clover, a professor at a different university, and then for continuing to harass him even after agreeing to have no further contact with him. And just so there's no confusion, she's admitted to almost everything:
In an interview with KQED, del Valle acknowledged some of the behavior described in the investigative reports, including keying Clover’s car, vandalizing the area outside his apartment door, contacting his friends, posting an image of his partner online and leaving messages outside the home of his mother. Those messages included one that said “I raised a psychopath,” according to the university’s investigative reports. She has also acknowledged in the report calling Clover’s office phone line at least ten times within 90 minutes.
....“I did write outside his door, ‘Here lives a pervert.’ I did that. And again, I’m not proud,” del Valle said. “If I had the opportunity to do things differently, I would do them differently.”....“I do understand it’s hard to side with me in that moment, and I was punished for that without salary and benefits,” del Valle said.
The obvious question here is: Why was del Valle harassing Clover? She says Clover hacked her phone, but a university investigation found no evidence of that. She provided hundreds of pages of documentation to back her case, but:
The documents include several dozen instances of why she believes she was hacked. For example, she cites writing a message to a relative in April 2019 mentioning trucks, and then a Twitter account she claimed belonged to Clover tweeted about “similar trucks” that same day.
This is not particularly convincing. Nor is there any indication of how Clover could have hacked her phone in the first place—or why. In any case, Cal has offered to settle the case by extending del Valle's supension to 18 months, but she won't take it. Many of her students are behind her:
Alejandra Decker, a Ph.D. candidate studying Mexican literature and culture and organizer with the campaign to reinstate del Valle, said the outcrying of support shows how missed del Valle is at UC Berkeley.
....“Those reports — anyone who reads them, I think we can all admit that they are difficult to read because they paint Professor Ivonne in a way that personally I’ve never seen,” Decker said. “It’s a woman’s actions in her biggest moments of survival.”
I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that Decker apparently doesn't care about del Valle's campaign of harassment because she herself wasn't a target. And anyway, del Valle was really upset so we should forgive her.
Unless the university investigations were wildly off the mark—which seems unlikely given del Valle's admissions—this is fucking nuts. del Valle is lucky to still have a job, let alone a mere 18-month suspension. But her students don't care. She's a minority woman in trouble, and that's enough.
I continue to think that excesses of wokeness on university campuses are not a huge deal. When it goes too far I'm happy to be on the side of common sense, but on a scale of one to ten, where ten is "the collapse of Western civilization," I'd probably give this stuff about a three.
Still, there's no denying that the individual cases sure can be creepy and unsettling.
I'd give it a one. It's not remarkable when college students engage in misguided stunts. I'd be more concerned if that somehow stopped happening, though I'm not too worried about that.
Lucky to still have a job? I'll be surprised if the guy doesn't sue her. I don't know why she's not in jail.
And why does Decker still have a job, in light of defending such a thing it strongly suggests a considerable lack of seriousness and character, exactly the kind of person we wouldn't want in a position to influence impressionable students.
Anyone want to bet that they both hate Israel and are planning to vote for Cornel West?
Decker is a graduate student.
This makes it worse, a professor picking on a lowly graduate student. Clearly asymmetric warfare. .
This line of comments has completely lost the plot. Decker is a graduate student, but she's not the person that del Valle harassed. She's one of del Valle's students, protesting her suspension.
Did she lose her job because of her stalking, or was it because her "evidence" was so poor that it was demonstrative of someone who shouldn't be teaching college students?
Per what Kevin wrote, she has not lost her job. She has been suspended.
She's been suspended for 2 years -- an indefinite suspension -- which for all intents and purposes, is the university trying to kick her out, don't you think?
More or less. With no teaching, research support, grad students to teach, etc., your career is in limbo, if not sunk, at a place like Berkeley.
If she's a full professor, she is tenured.
Having read the link I have to say that I’m sorry either one of them has a job teaching. Both could be held up by right wingers as examples of what’s wrong with universities.
it's not clear to me why this is a case of "excess wokeness on college campuses" instead of a case of some students doing something stupid to support someone they are close to and like. neither supporting del Valle or her apparent victim of harrass are "woke", one side is just right and the other is wrong.
I think Kevin is keying off of Decker's statment ("It’s a woman’s actions in her biggest moments of survival") as a sort of criticism-of-a-woman-speaking/acting-her-emotional-truth is, like, colonialism or systemtic racism or something.
I agree, it's a bit of a reach.
I was thinking the same thing. I'm sure in right-wing echo chambers, however, this is being thrown into the "woke" basket.
I appreciate that Kevin calls out this case at all, but I continue to wonder just what it will take to shake people out of their complacency:
"I continue to think that excesses of wokeness on university campuses is not a huge deal. When it goes too far I'm happy to be on the side of common sense, but on a scale of one to ten, where ten is 'the collapse of Western civilization,' I'd probably give this stuff about a three."
This statement is especially galling in the wake of 10/7/23, when an international audience at a music festival in Israel was slaughtered by Hamas and American campuses erupted - in celebration.
To this day it remains the case that most mainstream media outlets (other than Fox) are Liberal and that these Liberal outlets are basically in agreement with the Leftist extremism on Campus.
When both universities as well as media companies (such as NPR and the WP) are all adopting similarly worded DEI statements, those media companies will very likely fail to adequately report on the problem of woke campus culture related to those very DEI statements.
In some cases, such as with NPR, I personally am convinced that they are actively contributing to the problem of radicalization infecting both the Left and the Right.
Kevin's comment above may be a perfect example of what I'm talking about. He simply may not realize how much of a bubble outlets like NPR keep him in (of course, I'm assuming he listens to NPR, but since he previously worked at Mother Jones magazine, I think that's a safe assumption).
Nevertheless, for those of you who refuse to accept any news from ostensibly conservative outlets, there is at least some reporting that occasionally breaks through on the Left in such a way as to throw at least some genuine light on the extremism of modern universities:
*"Tabia Lee’s ouster at De Anza College has become a flash point over diversity and inclusion policies on U.S. campuses," from the SF Chron
*"A Uniquely Terrible New DEI Policy," from the Atlantic.
*"Hamline University’s Controversial Firing Is a Warning," from Slate.
But such examples are, in my opinion, the exception to the rule. In general, the majority of Liberal media outlets remain fixated like a laser on the school censorship enforced by, for example, Republican Governor DeSantis in Florida while largely neglecting the state-wide school censorship now enforced at all Community Colleges in the blue/Democratic state of California.
So if you really want to get a more accurate idea of how bad the extremism is at American universities these days, you have to turn to independent writers (on a platform like Substack) or to media outlets deemed "conservative." If you remain in your Liberal media silo, you will likely miss the import of this story.
It's an example of left wing extremism that Berkeley removed a Mexican-immigrant professor or colonial studies from her job for personal behavior stuff?
The context of Kevin's blog post, as I understand it, is surprise that the professor in question still has a job at all. And that one of the reasons why she may still have a job is because she represents one or more demographic groups understood as a "minority" or as otherwise oppressed. Therefore, questions of "identity" seem to be trumping questions of egregiously awful misconduct if not outright mental instability.
Just FYI, the KQED article says she has not been teaching at Berkeley since fall 2021.
That's what the right calls "trumping"? Not having a job?
This story has nothing to do with Israel or Hamas or the war. But thanks for your attempts to muddy the waters.
Liberal media outlets remain fixated like a laser on the school censorship enforced by, for example, Republican Governor DeSantis
Lord knows we wouldn't want to talk about that, don't we?
At least for certain people.
"To this day it remains the case that most mainstream media outlets (other than Fox) are Liberal and that these Liberal outlets are basically in agreement with the Leftist extremism on Campus."
Thanks for that steaming pile of horse sh1t. I'll never get over conservatives endless whining about college students. Maybe focus on the Nazis you hang out with.
I think Clover will not sue because he is very left and hates the police with a passion. They are both on the CRT / woke side of the political spectrum. I personally do not like it when harassment by what seems to be a mentally disturbed person is excused because of the politics and identity of the harasser. If this were happening to me I would be quite alarmed.
I hope she still has benefits to get help she needs. At least from the information here, that is what is needed.
Yeah, this seems an obvious case of mental instability requiring some sort of intervention.
Having watched two people go through the hell of having a stalker, I would not wish it on anyone. That these students are wrapped up in it is some Jim Jones shit.
"...this is fucking nuts. del Valle is lucky to still have a job, let alone a mere 18-month suspension. But her students don't care. She's a minority woman in trouble, and that's enough."
You're starting to sound like someone's Fox-News-watching uncle.
I don't see any way, especially since there is a big part of this case which is confidential, that this can even be shoehorned into "wokeness" unless that word is defined as anything which happens on a college campus.
Completely absent in the long article is the slightest indication of why Clover wanted to stalk del Valle. If Clover basically did nothing to del Valle, which is possible, this is some serious Fatal Attraction stuff.
If, on the other hand, Clover did something, like hit on del Valle and ghosted her, well, then its still Fatal Attraction but the analysis shifts because the record is completely absent of anything Clover did.
If, finally, the truth is somewhere in the messy in between, then perhaps the students are ridiculously over reacting, like immature college students they are, and the only thing woke about it would be the scent of "well the guy is reasonable and the girl is a nut" flavor to the story. Which of course has plenty of proof that she is a nut.
Good grief though. Ugly facts. Sounds more like a divorce case than an issue of treatment of minority professors.
Clover, by the way is 60, so as long as we are speculating he's not in the demographic with the innate ability to engage in tech hacks. He also, per his ridiculous tweets about cops, shows he has little ability to figure out social media. But that's barely evidence as well.
News flash: conservatives define wokeness as anything that happens on university campuses.
Clover is a professor of English lit. If he actually had the skills to hack a phone, he’d be a fool not to quit and get a much better-paying job as a ‘white hat’. Or probably make even more as a black hat.
Three university enquiries and a journalist's investigation concluded del Valle was at fault. There's no coverage of what Clover did wrong because he almost certainly did nothing wrong. The stalker professor is obviously mentally ill and her target was likely chosen at random.
“ Unless the university investigations were wildly off the mark—which seems unlikely given del Valle's admissions—this is fucking nuts. del Valle is lucky to still have a job, let alone a mere 18-month suspension. But her students don't care. She's a minority woman in trouble, and that's enough. “
fucking nuts is right - this is one of the most egregious reaches i’ve come across, and i’ve been reading your work for some time now.
i some context would be helpful to this reader; i can’t find any evidence of “wokeness” in any quote you’ve pulled.
Reading this, del Valle has pretty clearly suffered some type of psychotic break. del Valle says her phone was hacked (paranoia) and provided hundreds of pages of documentation (conspiratorial obsession), including "For example, she cites writing a message to a relative in April 2019 mentioning trucks, and then a Twitter account she claimed belonged to Clover tweeted about “similar trucks” that same day" (isolating sensory perceptions)
I am not a psychiatrist, but that sounds very much like a personality disorder. If the investigation found she has been diagnosed with a mental illness and was not medication compliant or she was diagnosed during the investigation, it would explain why she has retained her job.
Either way, put me in the "Graduate students will be Graduate students" column. I am not particularly troubled by a protest of 12 or so students, quoting platitudes from a graduate seminar on colonialism to protest the suspension of a beloved professor. It's not many students. It's twelve. And even the protestors acknowledge del Valle's actions were wrong.
Yeah, itscreams mental health crisis.
As for her students, she may actually be really supportive to her grad students. If that's the case, I could see why they may want to keep her around, no matter what. Alternatively, losing her will screw up their graduation timeline, which could mean thousands more in student debt.
For the record, male professors have gotten away with a lot worse with little to no punishments over the years. That is not to excuse what she did.
That is surprising. I was coming on here to comment that if a male professor had done this, he probably would have been fired outright. Do you have any examples of this relatively recently?
Not sure why this is worth the whole nation’s attention but ok. Let’s assume it is. It’s still unclear what this has to do with anything except obviously del Valle and her fans have issues with Clover. So basically 2 humans at 2 different universities disagree with each other. Stop the presses and put out a media blitz!
Eventually this nation of 330m+ is going to have to recalibrate the threshold of “what is newsworthy” to be higher than just a few individuals. In a country of 330m+ a lot of weird shit is happening every single day.
But it doesn't seem like this is an academic dispute. All her actions are too personal for that.
This is not brought up in the column or the comments, but the first that comes to mind is a mental health issue and ideas of paranoia. To imagine that there is a link between a message to a relative in April 2019 mentioning trucks, and then a Twitter account she claimed belonged to Clover tweeted about “similar trucks” that same day is completely irrational. This person needs psychiatric care. This is sad, but it happens. Kevin, you just had a few columns on "free will". Here is one case where the cogwheels of the brain are playing trick on this poor woman. She needs help.