The school year is over at UC Berkeley and many other colleges, but campus tensions around the war in Gaza continue. An alarming rise in anti-Semitism and fierce debate over the word “Zionist” threaten longstanding campus traditions of free expression.

Universities from coast to coast have been torn apart by protest encampments against Israel’s retaliatory war on Hamas and the impact it’s had in Gaza. From Columbia to Cal to UCLA, university leaders have been under fire, students facing off with police, both on and off campus, administrations forced to reckon with how their money is invested and whether they’re supporting a war halfway around the world.

At Cal, the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli encampment is gone, after a negotiated agreement there, but it was followed by an off-campus occupation that police came in and broke up. For more on all of this, we are joined live today on the KCBS Ring Central Newsline by Ethan Katz, Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies at UC Berkeley, where he is Faculty Director of the Center for Jewish Studies, as well as Chair of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Jewish Student Life and Campus Climate, and co-founder of the Antisemitism Education Initiative.