The University of California Berkeley was recently accused of segregation because the university allegedly banned white students from its community farm.
The university is under investigation following claims that the UC Gill Tract Community Farm nearby offered its space exclusively to “Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.” The investigation was kickstarted by a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education (DoE) from the Mountain States Legal Foundation.
William Trachman, who serves as general counsel for the group potentially suing the university, said, “UC-Berkeley thinks that racial segregation is progressive now, but it’s no different than segregation of the past.”
The Gill Tract Community Farm was launched in 2013 in partnership with UC-Berkeley and the surrounding neighborhoods of nearby Albany. According to the farm’s website, the students and faculty at UC-Berkeley use the area for “food justice.”
“We envision the return of land to its rightful stewards, practicing rematriation and reparations as modes of collective healing, and community-based land stewardship rooted in the right relationship with poor, Black, Indigenous, unhoused, and landless peoples of the world,” the farm’s website reads.
The complaint from the Mountain States Legal Foundation reportedly includes an email from a farm program manager telling people that white people cannot utilize the facilities on Saturdays.
“Saturdays are exclusively BIPOC,” the email reportedly reads. “Exceptions have only been made for events that are BIPOC-centered and with plenty of advance notice and planning … I trust you stand in solidarity with upholding boundaries around that safe and sacred space.”
UC-Berekley maintains that it was unaware of the legal complaint until The New York Post brought it to the university’s attention.
“The anonymous texts attached to the complaint have no specific information about time or place,” Dan Mogulof, a university spokesperson, told The Post. “And, as you can see, the Gill Tract’s website and calendar make no mention whatsoever of any program or activity of the sort described in the complaint.”
“The university takes complaints like this extremely seriously and I can assure you that on Monday I will contact the appropriate people on campus in an effort to determine what the facts are,” Mogulof continued.
