UC Berkeley suspended lecturer Peyrin Kao without pay for six months after he combined classroom criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza with a public hunger-strike advocacy campaign, the university’s provost said. Kao had previously been reprimanded for using class time to discuss the conflict; administrators say he mentioned the strike multiple times in class and in public interviews, and that he intended the protest to influence students. Kao and supporters framed the suspension as a First Amendment and academic-freedom dispute; the provost cited Regents Policy 2301 forbidding irrelevant use of class time and protecting student safety. The case illustrates how faculty activism, classroom speech policies and campus discipline intersect—and how institutions are being pushed to articulate standards on political expression that satisfy students, faculty governance, and legal constraints.