UC Berkeley to offer position to Israeli dance researcher — Jerusalem Post
The University of California, Berkeley, in the United States has promised to offer a teaching position to Israeli dance researcher Yael Nativ after settling her lawsuit over the refusal to hire her. As The Jerusalem Post reports, the university explained the more than nine-month delay in fulfilling the agreement by citing internal miscommunication among administrators.
UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said that Nativ should receive a job offer no later than the week beginning September 28. According to him, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Ben Hermalin will personally oversee the sending of the offer. Nativ also said that on September 21, she received an apology from a university administrator for the delay and assurances that the offer would be sent promptly.
Rejection after October 7
Nativ, a sociologist specializing in Israeli dance, taught in UC Berkeley's dance department in spring 2022 as a visiting professor through the Helen Diller Institute of Jewish Law and Israel Studies. Her course focused on contemporary dance in Israel in its social, political, and cultural dimensions.
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The institute invited her to apply for another year of teaching. After Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, dance department chair Sansan Kwan informed Nativ that she would not be able to teach the course the following fall. In November 2023, Kwan wrote to her on WhatsApp that the department could not invite her to teach the course because the situation was tense and many graduate students were angry.
Lawsuit and settlement
The university's Office for Civil Rights investigated the situation and concluded that Nativ had been discriminated against because of her Israeli identity. In August 2025, she filed a lawsuit against the university with legal representation from the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.
In December 2025, the parties settled the lawsuit: the university acknowledged the wrongdoing of its actions, committed to apologizing to Nativ, and invited her to return to campus. UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons apologized to the researcher during a video meeting on February 3, but a job offer did not follow. After leaving Berkeley, Nativ became a research fellow at Ben-Gurion University in Israel.
