UC-Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and his wife hosted a dinner at their home for students this week and the event was hijacked by anti-Israel student activists.

One young woman who is the head of Students for Justice in Palestine at Berkeley Law even launched into an anti-Israel speech with a microphone.

The Washington Free Beacon has details:

Anti-Israel Agitators Derail Dinner at Home of UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky

Anti-Israel hecklers crashed a Tuesday dinner that U.C. Berkeley’s Jewish law school dean hosted for graduating students, days after activists circulated a blood libel cartoon targeting the dean and referencing the planned dinner.

Malak Afaneh, the head of Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine, stood in the midst of the backyard dinner hosted by law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky and his wife while roughly 60 law students were eating. Wearing a keffiyeh and hijab, she delivered an anti-Israel speech through a microphone, according to a Wednesday statement from Chemerinsky and an Instagram video from the Bay Area Palestinian Youth Movement that depicted the disruption.

“Please leave our house, you are guests in our house,” Chemerinsky can be heard saying, as his wife put her arm around Afaneh. Afaneh refused to budge, stating with her eyes half-closed that “we have attorneys” and that the disruption at the private home was their “First Amendment right.” Ultimately Afaneh left with about 10 other students who had accompanied her.

The disruption came a week after the law school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine posted a cartoon on Instagram showing Chemerinsky holding a fork and knife dripping with blood over the dinner, captioned with “No Dinner With Zionist Chem While Gaza Starves.”

Leftists are trying to paint Malak Afaneh as a victim, naturally. Note the words posted on the video, not the description of what happened by this Twitter/X user:

Crazy Footage out of UC Berkley

UC Berkeley Law Professor Catherine Fisk and her husband, Dean Chemerinsky, hosted a dinner for all graduating law students. During the dinner, law student, Malak Afaneh, stood up to decry the law school’s investments in Boeing, Lockheed Martin,… pic.twitter.com/7rwM9bzZTr

— Stu (@thestustustudio) April 10, 2024

And look at the antisemitic propaganda put out by these activists:

Antisemites at @BerkeleyLaw are targeting their professors.

When Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Prof. Catherine Fisk invited 3Ls to dinner, students called for a boycott and then came to their home with a mic to protest.

Now @sairasameerarao is spreading this video without context. pic.twitter.com/mHILs5To8m

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) April 10, 2024

Afaneh did not have First Amendment grounds here.

No, you do not have the First Amendment right to give a speech on someone else’s private property after you’ve been asked to leave by the property owners. https://t.co/f3DHc7hccd

— Nico Perrino (@NicoPerrino) April 10, 2024

This longer video of the confrontation at Dean Chemerinsky and Professor Fisk’s home shows in more detail just how insufferable these students are.

And Chemerinsky has confirmed it’s a private residence (see below), which, as you can see, they were asked to leave repeatedly. pic.twitter.com/ojbaK1fnuM

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) April 11, 2024

Dean Chemerinsky has released a statement:

UPDATE: Statement from Dean Chemerinsky:

“I am enormously sad that we have students who are so rude as to come into my home, in my backyard, and use this social occasion for their political agenda.”

Two more “dinners will go forward on Wednesday and Thursday. I hope that there… https://t.co/5mL4OkxFUR pic.twitter.com/OStMDilrgs

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) April 10, 2024

From the statement:

On April 9, about 60 students came to our home for the dinner. All had registered in advance. All came into our backyard and were seated at tables for dinner. While guests were eating, a woman stood up with a microphone, stood on the top step in the yard, and began a speech, including about the plight of the Palestinians. My wife and I immediately approached her and asked her to stop and leave. The woman continued. When she continued, there was an attempt to take away her microphone. Repeatedly, we said to her that you are a guest in our home, please stop and leave. About 10 students were clearly with her and ultimately left as a group.

The dinner, which was meant to celebrate graduating students, was obviously disrupted and disturbed. I am enormously sad that we have students who are so rude as to come into my home, in my backyard, and use this social occasion for their political agenda.

The dinners will go forward on Wednesday and Thursday. I hope that there will be no disruptions; my home is not a forum for free speech. But we will have security present. Any student who disrupts will be reported to student conduct and a violation of the student conduct code is reported to the Bar.

I have spent my career staunchly defending freedom of speech. I have spent my years as dean trying hard to create a warm, inclusive community. I am deeply saddened by these events and take solace that it is just a small number of our students who would behave in such a clearly inappropriate manner.

As I have said before and as this incident makes clear, these activists are not trying to win people over to their side. They are trying to assert dominance.

Featured image via Twitter video.

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