On-field student protest delays start of USC-Cal game

A protest over the suspension of a professor took place on the field before USC-Cal

Kickoff for Cal-USC on Saturday in Berkeley was delayed due to a protest when students locked arms at midfield.

The protest is believed to be tied to the school suspending Prof. Ivonne del Valle.

KQED explained what led to the professor’s ban:

A growing group of UC Berkeley students has been staging a months-long protest campaign demanding that the university bring a suspended Spanish and Portuguese professor back to campus. They’ve shared testimonies highlighting how influential Ivonne del Valle has been both as a mentor and as a leading scholar at a school with few Latinx faculty.

“Professor del Valle isn’t just any faculty member, she’s the top expert in colonial studies,” said Emily Chamale, a second year UC Berkeley student, at a protest last month. “The question that haunts me is: If someone as respected as her is going through such things at Berkeley, what might the future be for the rest of us?”

But records obtained by KQED paint a troubling picture of what led to del Valle’s suspension. Over three investigations, which looked into behavior that began in 2018 and continued through 2022, the university found del Valle had repeatedly harassed, stalked and retaliated against Joshua Clover, an English and Comparative Literature professor at UC Davis, and then violated orders not to contact him.