Published by the Daily Californian on 12/12/2025 The UC Board of Regents settled a discrimination lawsuit filed earlier this year by UC Berkeley visiting dance professor Yael Nativ on Monday. Under the settlement, campus acknowledged that Nativ faced discrimination based on her Israeli national origin when her application to return to teach was denied, which is a violation of the UC’s Anti-Discrimination Policy. Nativ will receive $60,000, and her attorneys from the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, as well as Olivier & Schreiber PC, will receive $56,000 to cover legal fees and costs, according to the settlement agreement. Per the agreement, UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons will personally apologize to Nativ, and campus will invite her to teach the course she would have taught in the fall of 2024 in the semester of her choosing in 2026 or 2027. “I respect and appreciate Dr. Nativ’s decision to settle this case,” Lyons said in a statement. “She is owed the apology I will provide on behalf of our campus. We look forward to welcoming Dr. Nativ back to Berkeley to teach again.” Nativ was a visiting professor in Spring 2022 funded by the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies.She taught a course on contemporary dance in Israel in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, or TDPS. TDPS Chair SanSan Kwan denied Nativ’s application to return to teach the course in the 2024-25 school year in a WhatsApp message where Kwan said, “(My) dept cannot host you for a class next fall. … Things are very hot here 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,” according to the lawsuit. After Nativ wrote an op-ed in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz about the decision, and alumni filed complaints with UC Berkeley’s Office of the Chancellor, the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination, or OPHD, opened an investigation. OPHD concluded that Nativ faced discrimination based on her national origin in September 2024. “We shouldn’t have needed to file a lawsuit; Dr. Nativ had a clear-cut case of discrimination,” said Brandeis Center Litigation Staff Attorney Rebecca Harris in an email. OPHD report gave Nativ the opportunity to propose remedies; however, her remedies went unanswered by campus administration for months. Nativ then sued the regents in August for national origin discrimination and failure to prevent discrimination under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, as well as the California Education Code. “Institutions of higher education bear a fundamental responsibility to uphold the values of equity, inquiry and open dialogue,” Nativ said in a press statement. “Incidents of discrimination of any kind must have no place within environments dedicated to learning and the free exchange of ideas.” Under the terms of the settlement, campus said it will continue to enforce the UC’s Anti-Discrimination Policy and address potential violations of the policy “promptly and equitably.” Campus also said it will take actions when necessary, including disciplinary measures, to prevent, stop and rectify discrimination. The Brandeis Center has a separate ongoing lawsuit against campus and the UC Berkeley School of Law for alleged discrimination against Jewish students and professors.Harris hopes that the settlement and the ongoing lawsuit will lead to “further meaningful change” to confront antisemitism on campus. “We were able to accomplish justice for Dr. Nativ with this settlement,” Harris said in an email. “All Dr. Nativ wanted from the beginning was an apology, an invitation to return to teach her successful course again and a commitment from Berkeley that it will not discriminate against anyone because of their nationality in the future.”