A surge in right-wing politics had reshaped California, politicians had been attacking immigrants, and opponents of affirmative action had succeeded in restricting it on college campuses. After a backlash driven by white Republican voters, UC Berkeley students rallied to defend teaching about communities of color and systemic racism.
The year wasn’t 2026, but 1999. Just a few years earlier, California voters had passed the anti-immigrant Proposition 187 and anti-affirmative action Proposition 209. Worried about cuts to ethnic studies classes, and inspired by the Third World Liberation movement that led to the field’s creation in the 1960s, students staged a hunger strike and occupied a building, pushing for more resources for the department.
Among the demands: A multicultural community center, planned and run in partnership with students. The university agreed, and over the next two decades, the center evolved into a hub for student organizing and teaching the histories and cultures of the Black, Latino, Asian and Native American communities that made up the core of the ethnic studies movement, along with those of LGBTQ students.
But today — amid another, more extreme turn to the right at the national level — some supporters of the center say its ability to carry out its mission is under attack. In February, university administrators stripped all the artwork from the center’s walls, including a large-scale colorful mural depicting heroes of the ethnic studies movement, a poster of Martin Luther King Jr. and a “Free Palestine” sign. The student interns who help run the center also say they have been told they cannot allow community or student organizations to schedule events at the center — a longtime part of its programming.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons says the changes come in the wake of complaints that some students felt unwelcome at the center, citing pro-Palestinian artwork as one element that visitors experienced as hostile.
“My job is to make sure as wide a cross-section of people feel welcome as possible,” he told Berkeleyside in February.
But to the students, alumni and faculty who are supporting a campaign to defend the Multicultural Community Center, the changes amount to a whitewashing of what they view as the center’s essential purpose.
“The administration is saying, ‘Oh no, you’re not being inclusive,’ when the Multicultural Community Center was founded to be inclusive of marginalized students,” said Sarah Halabe, a doctoral student in ethnic studies.
At issue is the character of the Multicultural Community Center itself: Is it a neutral university space that, like other buildings on campus, should be equally welcoming to all? Or is it an inherently political space centering the experiences of those who have historically been excluded from the university’s centers of power?
At a time when the Trump administration’s war on woke has led some red state universities to ban teaching about race and gender, the controversy over the Multicultural Community Center is also a reminder of the subtler changes taking place on California campuses. Campuses up and down the state are responding to a barrage of lawsuits and investigations from the federal government accusing them of tolerating antisemitism or unlawfully promoting diversity, and wars in the Middle East have divided communities. Programs and centers that emphasize the experiences of students of color are frequent targets.
At UC Berkeley, Trump officials and Congressional Republicans have initiated at least seven separate investigations since 2024, raising the stakes on campus conversations about diversity and student activism. Multicultural Community Center student interns interviewed for this story asked to be quoted anonymously, citing fear of retaliation from university administrators; full-time center staff contacted by Berkeleyside either declined to comment or did not respond to messages.
The Multicultural Community Center was born from a movement
From the beginning, the Multicultural Community Center reflected the movement it emerged from, said Harvey Dong, a lecturer in ethnic studies who was a graduate student at the time of the 1999 student strike.
“A movement was building, and this was during a time when supposedly activism had died,” Dong said. “There’s all kinds of racial wedge type politics being played in the state of California, but then here you have students taking a forward step.”
Protesters were upset that professors in the ethnic studies department who had retired or passed away were not being replaced, Dong said. “Students camped out in front of the chancellor’s office. They put up tombstones for every class that had disappeared.”
The newly created center that came out of the protests — along with a commitment to hire more ethnic studies professors — had a six-point mission: student-led, anti-oppression, cross-cultural understanding, sustainability and wellness, popular education, and social justice. It would also be a physical container for the various social justice, recruitment and retention work that was taking place across campus, said Andrew Chang, who served as the center’s first full-time director.
“We were just trying to find a way that underrepresented and working class communities still had a way to get to UC Berkeley and once they got there, support them to stay there,” said Chang, now a labor representative for the California Nurses Association.
The center’s utility immediately became apparent, Chang said: Muslim students at the time were having trouble finding a dedicated place to pray on campus. The Multicultural Community Center invited them in, helping put pressure on the university to find them a permanent space, Chang said.
Evolving over the years from a repurposed study lounge to its current airy, sunlit digs, the center has hosted lectures, concerts and teach-ins, while providing students with study space, a library, snacks, free printing and a community garden. A small team of full-time university staff works with about two dozen student interns to run the center, funded in part by student fees approved under a campus referendum. While it’s housed in a university building, interns had long enjoyed substantial influence over its programming.
LaNada War Jack, one of the organizers of the 1969 Native American-led occupation of Alcatraz, held her book launch there. The center hosted a memorial for acclaimed Asian American filmmaker Loni Ding, and cosponsored a talk by Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza. In 2018, several generations of activists gathered to mark nearly 50 years of the ethnic studies movement, with veterans passing on tips to younger organizers.
“Any given day you would come and there would be queer, trans students of color meeting in the reading room and finding new books to explore, building art in the main space or holding events here,” said Anya Kushwaha, a graduate student in social welfare.
The space was unabashedly political, Cal alumni who used it said — but it was also healing, especially for first-generation college students navigating a sometimes-overwhelming campus.
Jess Reyes, a 2016 UC Berkeley graduate, remembers stumbling into the Multicultural Community Center during her first year, when students were hosting a research symposium for social-justice-oriented projects. “I went in and just saw people doing research on things that weren’t something in a lab. It was really powerful,’” she said.
Reyes later became an intern at the center, then got a master’s degree in public health, a field in which she still works. The center “was more than just a place on campus,” she said. “It was a porthole to possibility.”
Cultural resource centers like the Multicultural Community Center can help students find a sense of belonging on campus, some studies have found.
The center’s director, Antmen Pimentel Mendoza, discussed the phenomenon on a 2024 podcast hosted by the university’s Othering and Belonging Institute.
In non-classroom spaces like the center, “students are invited to be whole people, as opposed to the school self that they might be performing and masking as all day,” Pimentel Mendoza said.
Cal briefly closed center in the fall following complaints students felt unwelcome
Trouble began in the fall of 2024, after the Hamas-led attacks on Israel, and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza, led to rallies and encampments on campuses nationwide. UC Berkeley administrators became aware of pro-Palestinian political signs in the center’s windows, which face onto one of the university’s main plazas near the performing arts center. They worried that the messages — which included “No Apology for Armed Palestine” and “Globalize the Intifada” — would be perceived as reflecting the views of the university, Lyons said.
“We said, ‘We get free speech, we get the history of the Multicultural Community Center, but we are not going to have signs in a Berkeley building pointing outside to the public, because it looks like Berkeley endorses those signs. And some of those signs were very aggressive,” Lyons said.
Center staff agreed to turn the signs so they were pointed inward. But the perception that the center was serving as a base for student organizing on behalf of Palestinians rankled some faculty.
The university’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination received multiple complaints about the center that referenced signage there, UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said. It’s unclear who filed them; the university has yet to provide complaint records requested by Berkeleyside in February. But Steven Davidoff Solomon, a UC Berkeley law professor who is advising the Trump administration on combating campus antisemitism, has called the Multicultural Community Center an example of “deep-rooted antisemitism issues” at Cal.
We get free speech, we get the history of the Multicultural Community Center, but we are not going to have signs in a Berkeley building pointing outside to the public, because it looks like Berkeley endorses those signs. And some of those signs were very aggressive.”
— Rich Lyons, chancellor of UC Berkeley
Several student supporters of the center said Solomon had visited there, taking photos, asking whether the center had events for Jewish students, and bringing with him students from a class on antisemitism and the law.
One intern who was present during a visit by Solomon and students in spring of 2025 said the tone of the interaction felt hostile, with the group repeating the same questions over and over.
“It made me feel frightened — a place that had been a safe space for me on campus felt violated,” said the intern.
Solomon declined to comment on the record for this story. But Ethan Katz, a history professor and chair of a university committee on Jewish life, said he’d heard of many instances of Jewish students feeling “exceedingly unwelcome” at the center.
“Many of them, the first thing they think is, ‘This is supposed to be a place where all cultures can express themselves,’ ” Katz said.
But “particularly at the height of the war, people entering the space saw just an enormous quantity of pro-Palestinian signage,” he said. “It seemed impossible that someone could be in that space and express an affiliation with Israel without being met with tremendous animosity.”
Supporters of the center, however, saw opposition to a conflict that a United Nations commission has called a genocide as in line with the center’s core value of opposing oppression. And they noted that other Jewish students worked at the center and felt comfortable there.
“The battle is to make the MCC politically neutral, and by politically neutral, they mean inclusive of Zionist perspectives and right wing perspectives more broadly,” said Halabe. “But the MCC has never been neutral. It was born out of this very politicized fight for ethnic studies.”
The battle is to make the MCC politically neutral, and by politically neutral, they mean inclusive of Zionist perspectives and right wing perspectives more broadly. But the MCC has never been neutral. It was born out of this very politicized fight for ethnic studies.”
— Sarah Halabe, doctoral student in ethnic studies
Tensions came to a head last fall, when the center abruptly closed, sparking backlash from students and alumni.
“I wouldn’t have been able to graduate without receiving the support I got from the Multicultural Community Center. This is so devastating,” read one of hundreds of social media comments on a story about the closure in the student newspaper, the Daily Californian.
Behind the scenes, administrators say, they were working on a plan to reopen the center while addressing the concerns.
“We are ensuring Multicultural Community Center practices align with university policies and the Multicultural Community Center’s own mission statement, which emphasizes cross-cultural understanding and the provision of a welcoming and inclusive space for all students,” Lyons told a meeting of student government senators last month.
Fabrizio Mejia, the university’s Interim Vice Chancellor of Equity and Inclusion, said he was most concerned about the well-being of staff at the center, which his division oversees.
“They felt under siege and like there was always somebody watching what they were doing,” he said. “When you’re under pressure, you can’t do your work.”
‘You cannot kill art’: Students stage exhibit about censorship
The center reopened this spring, but with its art removed and the event restrictions in place.
University administrators had told center staff that they had to take down the wall art, which ranged from pro-Palestinian collages to graphic posters slamming U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and calling for justice for Alex Nieto, the young San Franciscan killed by police in 2014.
The student interns complied, but drew the line at removing the center’s iconic mural and a “Free Palestine” sign that had been there for years, said one intern on the center’s art committee. When they next returned to the center, they said, those too had been taken down.
Last month, students staged a censorship-themed art exhibit in the center’s main space. Free-standing sculptures commemorating the missing works alternated with posterboards bearing quotes about art and social change.
“With our walls stripped, we have lost an essential part of the MCC’s physical space,” a member of the center’s art committee told the audience. “However, there will always be art at the MCC. … You cannot kill art.”
They took down literal pictures of MLK. And I’m like, ‘This building is named after MLK. What are you doing?’”
— Anya Kushwaha, graduate student in social welfare
One display invited viewers to scrawl responses to prompts like, “What is the place of art in a movement?”
Jesus Barraza, a graphic artist and UC Berkeley lecturer whose poster celebrating the Third World Liberation Front was among the missing works, had his own answer to that question.
“It’s important for a space like this to have art up on its walls, because it reflects its history, how it came to be. Art is something that raises the consciousness of people,” he said, standing on the center’s outdoor patio as students milled around, noshing on churros.
“If they’re taking art now, are they taking books next?” he asked, gesturing inside, towards the center’s library. “Because there’s a whole library in there of things that people might not want to read or hear.”
UC Berkeley administrators have said that when art is posted on the wall of a space controlled by the university, it’s treated as university speech rather than student speech — making the university legally responsible. At the student government meeting, chief counsel David Robinson drew a distinction between the center’s walls and, say, a bulletin board on the campus’s main gathering space, Sproul Plaza, where anything that is not obscene can be posted.
Professional staff members at the Multicultural Community Center, not student interns, need to exercise editorial control over the walls, he said, using policies that are “objective and easily explainable.”
But as negotiations over what those policies should be drag on — and the center’s walls remain bare — some center supporters say they see the makeover as part of an attempt to avoid further scrutiny from the Trump administration.
In interviews, they drew a line from the controversy over the center to recent Trump administration attempts to control cultural and historical narratives, from the renaming of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to the removal of exhibits about slavery from national parks.
And they said the changes at the center also highlight the university’s ambivalent relationship with social movements and its own radical history, noting that the center is housed within the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union, steps from the Free Speech Movement Cafe.
It’s hard to figure out how to make that feel like a space of special belonging for groups that are there who have built the space and have it feel like a space that is more open to other groups. It requires everybody stretching.”
— Ethan Katz, chair of a university committee on Jewish life
“They took down literal pictures of MLK. And I’m like, ‘This building is named after MLK. What are you doing?’” said Kushwaha.
The crackdown on events, center supporters said, had removed a rare opportunity for students and community members to book space on campus, and undercut partnerships between the center and like-minded groups.
“Every organization has to choose who it makes sense to collaborate with based on their mission and core values,” said the art committee intern. “But the MCC is in a place of intense scrutiny and having anti-discrimination policies weaponized against us, to the point that we have even less power of expression than a space like a library, which can still put up flyers and art and events.”
Katz, the chair of the Jewish life committee, acknowledged the competing visions of the center’s future. “I recognize that it’s hard to figure out how to make [the center] feel like a space of special belonging for groups that are there, who have built the space, and have it feel like a space that is more open to other groups,” he said. “It requires everybody stretching.”
The university’s review of whether the center was complying with its mission to advance “cross cultural understanding” and “a welcoming and inclusive space” began before Trump returned to power last year, Mejia said.
But such tensions are likely to continue as the University of California system navigates its response to federal investigations and court cases, including a pending Department of Justice lawsuit alleging UCLA created a hostile work environment for Jewish employees.
Earlier this spring, the anti-DEI law firm Equal Protection Project filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education arguing that UC Berkeley centers supporting students of color, including the Black Resource Center and the Latinx Resource Center, violate federal civil rights law.
Since center reopened in spring, students are still ‘walking on eggshells’
A night after the art exhibit, experimental pop singer Spellling stood onstage at the Multicultural Community Center in a white button-down, crooning “Walk up to your house” to a crowd of about 100.
The concert and exhibit were part of an annual “week of cultural resistance” series that went on as usual this year. Students heard from alumni panelists how their time at the center had inspired them to tackle careers teaching African American Studies to high school students, promoting cultural burning practices on tribal land, and organizing workers in the Philippines. They attended a workshop on herbal medicine, bought crafts from local artisans and bonded over Caribbean food.
“I got a sense of community instantly,” said transfer student Nathalie Chavez after attending one of the week’s events.
“It’s kind of a breather in a way; you’re going to a space that’s very open-minded,” said Chavez, who had an underwhelming experience at a private college before finding her way to UC Berkeley. “[People ask] how are you doing, what are you passionate about? It feels comforting.”
But the recent tension was also apparent in signs, plastered on the otherwise blank walls, forbidding the taking of photos or videos without permission from the center’s director.
Kushwaha described the new vibe as “dystopian.”
“We’re here but we have to be careful about everything we say and do – it feels like we’re walking on eggshells,” she said.
After the political battles of 1990s California, ethnic studies became more firmly ensconced at UC Berkeley. The university expanded efforts to attract and retain a diverse student body that would not run afoul of the state’s ban on affirmative action at public colleges. Statewide, the red wave receded, and Democrats became the dominant political party.
It’s too early to say if UC Berkeley will see another resurgence of the ethnic studies movement in the current climate, or what that might look like. A group of students, faculty and community members is organizing a “Defend the MCC” campaign, mustering support online. They’re asking the university to restore art to the walls under student control, and remove restrictions on events.
“We firmly reject the administration’s grotesque reinterpretation of the MCC’s mission,” the group’s online call to action reads. “Art that expresses the moral and political values of MCC interns and the MCC community is essential to making students of marginalized communities feel welcome.”
Mejia, the vice chancellor for equity and inclusion, said he too wants the art to return — in the fall, with oversight from the center’s professional staff. And he said the university will create new criteria for event partnerships “in the coming months.”
“A big part of the MCC’s history and culture is art activism, so it’s unacceptable to me to not have art on the walls,” he said.
The night of the Spellling concert, a group of Native American powwow singers opened the evening’s entertainment. Shar Suke, an Oneida elder, addressed the students in the crowd.
“Some of us didn’t make it to college,” she said. “Every one of you is brave, every one of you is courageous, and every one of you deserves to be here.”
In a corner of the room, paintings leaned against the wall face down, their plywood backing hiding the colors beneath.