In legal settlement, UC Berkeley promises snubbed Israeli dance scholar a job offer

J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA — For more than nine months, UC Berkeley has failed to honor a legal settlement with an Israeli dance scholar who was denied a teaching position due to her nationality.

In response to a J. inquiry, a university spokesperson said the delay was caused by “internal miscommunication.” The US university now promises that the scholar, Yael Nativ, will receive the job offer she was guaranteed in the December 2025 settlement “no later than the week of September 28.”

“We deeply regret this unfortunate delay and look forward to welcoming Dr. Nativ back to our campus,” UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said in a statement.

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Nativ said she received an apology for the delay and the promise of an imminent job offer in a September 21 email from a university administrator.

“It’s always a surprise when I get emails from them because the correspondence was so little to none,” Nativ said. “I’m so tired of this case.”

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Nativ, a sociologist specializing in Israeli dance, taught in UC Berkeley’s dance department during spring 2022 as a visiting professor through the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies. Her course focused on contemporary dance in Israel through social, political and cultural perspectives.

The institute invited Nativ to reapply for another year of teaching. But after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, SanSan Kwan, chair of the dance department, informed Nativ that she would not be rehired. In November 2023, Kwan told Nativ in a WhatsApp message: “My dept cannot host you for a class next fall. Things are very hot right now and many of our grad students are angry. I would be putting the dept and you in a terrible position if you taught here.”

The university’s civil rights office investigated the matter and concluded that Nativ was discriminated against based on her Israeli identity.

Nativ sued the university, with representation from the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, in August 2025. When the two sides settled the lawsuit in December 2025, the university acknowledged its wrongdoing and committed to apologizing to Nativ and inviting her back to campus.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons apologized to Nativ over Zoom on February 3, but no job offer arrived.

The lapse was publicized by Malcolm Feeley, a retired UC Berkeley Law professor, who wrote about Nativ’s case in a September 16 article in the Jewish Review of Books.

“Justice delayed is justice denied. This is justice delayed in the extreme,” Feeley said in an interview. “It takes a concerted effort of badgering to get [the university] to move an inch.”

In a statement to J. following the publication of Feeley’s article, Mogulof said the university hadn’t sent Nativ a job offer due to a misunderstanding among administrators about who was responsible for doing so.

Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Ben Hermalin will personally ensure the offer will come within the next two weeks, according to Mogulof.

Nativ went on to work as a research fellow at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba after she left Berkeley. She said her main goal since the lawsuit has been to hold UC Berkeley accountable, not to land a job.

“It wasn’t urgent for me to go [back to campus]. It’s more about making a point, getting my justice,” she said. “But if they invite, I will consider.”

The lawsuit alleged national origin discrimination under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, failure to prevent discrimination under the act, and national origin discrimination under the California Education Code. It was one of dozens filed around the US related to antisemitism and anti-Zionist activism on college campuses.

Universities across the country have faced allegations of discrimination from Israel’s supporters and its opponents with allegations of discrimination over how the campuses responded to protests.

American Jews have filed most of the lawsuits, alleging antisemitism.  Israelis have also filed some cases due to alleged discrimination based on their national origin.

This story was first reported by J. The Jewish News of Northern California and is reprinted with permission.

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