Peyrin Kao

Peyrin Kao is a lecturer and activist. He is a computer science lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley and drew attention for his hunger strike on behalf of Palestine which lasted for 38 days.^[1]

Kao began lecturing in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at Berkeley in 2022.^[1] Previously, he had been a teaching assistant.^[2] His contract is set to expire in 2028.^[3]

In November 2023, Kao gave a 25-minute lecture and subsequently facilitated discussion on Israel's bombing of the Gaza Strip at the end of his computer science class. Kao posted the lecture and discussion to YouTube, which garnered much attention.^[2] He then had to meet with administrators over possible "disciplinary actions."^[3]

On August 27, 2025, the first day of classes at Berkeley, Kao announced a hunger strike which lasted 38 days, until early October.^[1] During it, he continued to teach courses while subsisting on a diet of 250 calories per day, resembling the average food portion accessible to Palestinians in Northern Gaza according to a 2024 Oxfam report.^[4][5] He also called for "the university to issue a statement declaring that Israel is conducting a genocide in Gaza, divest from the military, and change its ethical standards for collaborations and partnerships."^[3] After ending the hunger strike due to risk of permanent damage to his body, he continued to raise funds for individuals in Gaza.^[6][7]

In September 2025, Kao's name was listed among the 160 students and staff whom Berkeley identified to the federal government for an alleged antisemitism investigation.^[8] Kao called the action unsurprising but nonetheless consequential as a chilling effect on freedom of speech.^[9]

In December 2025, the Berkeley administration suspended Kao for the spring 2026 semester without pay; Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Benjamin Hermalin had written a recommendation letter for the action citing Kao's lecture in 2023 as inappropriate "political advocacy." Hermalin also argued that Kao's hunger strike violated school policy. Afterward, the student group STEM4Palestine declared a hunger strike beginning on December 10.^[10]

STEM4Palestine also launched an open letter calling for Kao’s reinstatement and denouncing his suspension as a violation of academic freedom. One of the signatories, former colleague and student of Kao, wrote:^[11]

"I had Peyrin as an instructor for CS 161, CS 188, and CS 168, and worked with Peyrin for 4 semesters as a TA for CS 188. Peyrin's contributions to CS at Berkeley are nothing short of a miracle for the department, and to be frank, losing Peyrin will be a disaster. The department needs to be made aware.

Never have I ever seen someone as devoted or hardworking as Peyrin. Myself and/or my friends have directly seen him:

• Sleep in Soda Hall after working long into the night
• With the help of a few TA's, grade an exam literally overnight, by staying up past midnight
• Answer so many students' Ed questions that he started to post them as invisible-to-students so that other TA's could copy-paste his responses and take the credit
• Bail out overflowing office hours queues when TA's were swamped—even though he wasn't officially teaching that class that semester
• Be actively working at 12AM on New Year's Day

Peyrin has the unique ability to run multiple classes smoothly in a way that absolutely no professor or head TA ever could. In every semester I've worked with him, he has been majorly involved in running logistics for at the bare minimum, 3 or 4 different courses, often without even officially being an instructor. No task is too menial or too complex for him—he isn't afraid to go print exams at 3 in the morning, but has the knowledge and experience to write exam questions and deal with far-reaching course policies.

While TA's and instructors certainly work hard, Peyrin is an incredible force multiplier and his loss would directly torpedo the effectiveness of, at minimum, 4 different key courses (CS 61B, CS 161, CS 188, CS 168). With less capacity to handle students in these classes, and with students less prepared and more stressed for follow-on courses, the effects will propagate throughout the entire department like a tsunami.

Any insinuation that Peyrin's activism or hunger strike have negatively impacted his teaching abilities and student learning is preposterous, because he's always done so much more than has been expected of him. Even if he was 1/2 as productive as he is, he would still be as effective as a particularly hardworking teaching professor—and leagues beyond many of my professors, to be honest. I'll leave it to my peers to speak about other factors. But from a pedagogical standpoint, suspending Peyrin would be the biggest mistake the department could make."