The University of California system is facing accusations of labor violations from faculty associations, alleging a statewide effort earlier this year to suppress pro-Palestinian speech and campus protests.

On Thursday, the Council of University of California Faculty Associations filed a complaint with the state Public Employment Relations Board. Faculty associations from seven UC campuses — Los Angeles, Irvine, San Diego, Santa Cruz, Berkeley, Davis and San Francisco — co-signed the complaint.

According to the CUCFA, this complaint builds on a similar filing made by the UCLA Faculty Association earlier this spring. It alleges that UC's widespread efforts to suppress pro-Palestinian speech on campuses violated state law, school regulations and state and federal constitutional protections.

"UC's actions to suppress speech about Palestine on our campuses, which represents an illegal content-based restriction of faculty rights, sets an alarming precedent," CUCFA President Constance Penley said in a statement. "Our unfair labor practice filing demands they change course and follow the law, and make whole the faculty who have been harmed."

Protests against the Israel-Gaza war erupted across the country in the spring, including on UC campuses, as students demanded that the schools divest from their interests in Israel. According to the state complaint, California teachers' have also been investigated for pro-Palestinian social media posts, arrested for exercising free speech, and surveilled and harassed by university staff.

"From the brutal predawn arrests ordered by university leaders to the vague and threatening notices of investigation, the university's goal is clear: to end Palestine solidarity activism on campus," UCLA associate professor Anna Markowitz said in a statement. "In this ULP charge, we are saying that this illegal suppression of speech cannot stand, whether about Palestine or about other issues that students and faculty may raise in the future."

​​Soon after Hamas launched attacks on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel retaliated by bombing Gaza, the university began sending letters to teachers threatening them with an investigation and a penalty for teaching information outside the scope of their courses.

According to the complaint, UC San Diego investigated two instructors in November for lecturing about Palestinian territories' history. The administration also issued a "letter of warning" to UC Irvine faculty members for organizing a vote on whether to conduct class at the on-campus campsite, with optional attendance.

The complaint says the university's "harsh crackdown against professors for expressing pro-Palestinian viewpoints stands in stark contrast to its treatment of vocal pro-Israeli faculty."

The university additionally refused to launch a formal disciplinary investigation into a pro-Israel faculty member at UC Irvine accused of harassing and physically intimidating an undergraduate student, despite video footage showing the faculty member "cornering, physically intimidating, and interrogating a visibly scared student," according to the filing.

The Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act of 1979 grants California university teachers the freedom to engage in protected concerted activity, which includes speaking on campus and organizing to alter university policies.

The Public Employee Relations Board is reviewing the case.

Tags University of California