The Berkeley Forum, referred to simply as the Forum, is a prominent, non-partisan

student organization A student society, student association, university society, student club, university club, or student organization is a society or an organization, operated by students at a university, college, or other educational institution, whose membership ty ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. Founded in 2012, the Forum hosts debates, panels, and talks with distinguished speakers on various topics; it is modeled after similar organizations at other prestigious universities, like the

Oxford Union The Oxford Union Society, commonly referred to as the Oxford Union, is a debating society in the city of Oxford, England, whose membership is drawn primarily from the University of Oxford. Founded in 1823, it is one of Britain's oldest unive ...

Cambridge Union The Cambridge Union Society, also known as the Cambridge Union, is a historic debating and free speech society in Cambridge, England, and the largest society in the University of Cambridge. The society was founded in 1815 making it the oldest ...

, and

Yale Political Union The Yale Political Union (YPU) is a debate society at Yale University, founded in 1934 by Alfred Whitney Griswold. It was modeled on the Cambridge Union and Oxford Union and the party system of the defunct Yale Unions of the late nineteenth an ...

. The Forum's events typically feature speeches by the speakers, followed by question and answer sessions with the audience.

Notable past events

The Berkeley Forum's first event was a panel debate on the federal fiscal crisis, held in March 2013. The panel featured former Secretary of Labor

Robert Reich Robert Bernard Reich (; born June 24, 1946) is an American professor, author, lawyer, and political commentator. He worked in the administrations of presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and he served as United States Secretary of Labor, Se ...

, policy director of the 2012 Romney presidential campaign

Lanhee Chen Lanhee Joseph Chen (; ; born July 4, 1978) is an American political scientist, lawyer, and academic who has served as a member of the Amtrak Board of Advisors since December 2024. Chen is also the David and Diane Steffy Fellow in American Public ...

, and the Dean of the

Goldman School of Public Policy The Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy, or the Goldman School of Public Policy (GSPP), is a public policy school and one of fourteen schools and colleges at the University of California, Berkeley. Originally named the Graduate Sch ...

Henry E. Brady. In November 2013, the Forum hosted

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

co-founder and American academic and political activist,

Lawrence Lessig Lester Lawrence "Larry" Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American legal scholar and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvar ...

. Lessig discussed the role of money in politics, in a speech entitled "Corrupting the Vote." The Forum's largest and most noteworthy event to date was a speech given by

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

Rand Paul Randal Howard Paul (born January 7, 1963) is an American politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, junior United States senator from Kentucky since 2011. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

on March 19, 2014. Senator Paul talked about the issue of government surveillance programs, like that of the

NSA The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and proces ...

. The event was held at Chevron Auditorium at Berkeley's International House with approximately 400 people in attendance. The next day, the event was featured on the front page of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''. Other notable attendees include former Secretary of Labor

and

Lieutenant Governor of California The lieutenant governor of California is the second highest Executive (government), executive officer of the government of the U.S. state of California. The Lieutenant governor (United States), lieutenant governor is elected to serve a four-yea ...

Gavin Newsom Gavin Christopher Newsom ( ; born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman serving since 2019 as the 40th governor of California. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served from 2011 to 201 ...

. In March 2014, the Berkeley Forum also hosted former

US Secretary of Energy The United States secretary of energy is the head of the United States Department of Energy, a member of the Cabinet of the United States and fifteenth in the presidential line of succession. The position was created on October 1, 1977, when Pr ...

and

Nobel Laureate The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...

Steven Chu Steven Chusustainable energy Energy system, Energy is sustainability, sustainable if it "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Definitions of sustainable energy usually look at its effects on the e ...

options. On November 14, 2014, the Berkeley Forum hosted

Oakland Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...

mayor

Jean Quan Lai Jean Quan (born October 21, 1949) is an American politician who served the 49th mayor of Oakland, California from 2011 to 2015. She previously served as City Council member for Oakland's 4th District. Upon inauguration on January 3, 2011, sh ...

. Quan spoke about local government and inequality in American cities. Then, on December 10, the Forum hosted American entrepreneur and venture capitalist,

Peter Thiel Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. According ...

. The event was interrupted by protesters. During the spring of 2015 the Forum hosted a number of events with such speakers as

Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies The School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) is a graduate school of Johns Hopkins University based in Washington, D.C. The school also maintains campuses in Bologna, Italy and Nanjing, China. The school is devoted to the study of int ...

Dean

Vali Nasr Vali Reza Nasr (, born 20 December 1960) is an Iranian-American academic and political scientist, specializing in Middle Eastern studies and the history of Islam. He is Majid Khaddouri Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies ...

graphic designer A graphic designer is a practitioner who follows the discipline of graphic design, either within companies or organizations or independently. They are professionals in design and visual communication, with their primary focus on transforming ...

John Maeda, Berkeley mayor Tom Bates, Slovak

Minister of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and foreign relations, relations, diplomacy, bilateralism, ...

Miroslav Lajčák Miroslav Lajčák (born 20 March 1963) is a Slovak politician and diplomat, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic. In addition, Lajčák also served as President of the United Nations General Assembly for the 72nd session f ...

, American legal scholar

Akhil Amar Akhil Reed Amar (born September 6, 1958) is an American legal scholar known for his expertise in U.S. constitutional law. He is a Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he is a leading scholar of originalism, ...

Khan Academy Khan Academy is an American non-profit educational organization created in 2006 by Sal Khan. Its goal is to create a set of online tools that help educate students. The organization produces short video lessons. Its website also includes suppl ...

founder

Salman Khan Abdul Rashid Salim Salman Khan (; born 27 December 1965) is an Indian actor, film producer, and television personality who predominantly works in Hindi films. In a career spanning over three decades, his awards include two National Film Awa ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

State Duma The State Duma is the lower house of the Federal Assembly (Russia), Federal Assembly of Russia, with the upper house being the Federation Council (Russia), Federation Council. It was established by the Constitution of Russia, Constitution of t ...

member

Ilya Ponomarev Ilya Vladimirovich Ponomarev (, ; born 6 August 1975) is a Russian people, Russian-Ukrainian people, Ukrainian politician who was a member of the Russian State Duma from 2007 to 2016. He was the only member of the State Duma not to vote in fa ...

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The budget of the ACLU in 2024 was $383 million. T ...

president

Susan Herman Susan N. Herman (born 1947) is an American legal scholar who served as president of the American Civil Liberties Union from October 2008 to January 2021. Herman has taught at Brooklyn Law School since 1980. Early life and education Herman was bor ...

chancellor Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...

Nicholas Dirks,

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost

Claude Steele Claude Mason Steele (born January 1, 1946) is a social psychologist and emeritus professor at Stanford University, where he is the I. James Quillen Endowed Dean, Emeritus at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, and Lucie Stern Pr ...

, and

congressmen A member of congress (MOC), also known as a congressman or congresswoman, is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The ...

John Sarbanes John Peter Spyros Sarbanes ( ; born May 22, 1962) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 2007 to 2025. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes Annapolis, the entirety of Howard ...

, Jerry McNerney,

Jared Huffman Jared William Huffman (born February 18, 1964) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the United States House of Representatives, U.S. representative for California's 2nd congressional district since 2013. A member of the Democratic Part ...

, and Mark DeSaulnier. The panel with Dirks and Steele was interrupted by protesters. During the session the organization also hosted a screening of Killswitch. Later in 2015, the Berkeley Forum also hosted events with US Secretary of Homeland Security

Jeh Johnson Jeh Charles Johnson ( "Jay"; born September 11, 1957) is an American lawyer and former government official. He was United States Secretary of Homeland Security from 2013 to 2017. From 2009 to 2012, Johnson was the general counsel of the Departm ...

Kabam Kabam (formerly Watercooler, Inc.) is a Canadian video game developer and publisher founded in 2006 and headquartered in Vancouver, with offices in Montreal, San Francisco, and Austin, Texas. The company develops and publishes massively multipl ...

co-founder and CEO Kevin Chou,

Nonhuman Rights Project The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) is an American nonprofit animal rights organization seeking to change the legal status of at least some nonhuman, nonhuman animals from that of property to that of Personhood, persons, with a goal of securing r ...

founder Steven M. Wise,

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...

journalist Nonny de la Peña,

LGBT rights Rights affecting lesbian, Gay men, gay, Bisexuality, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the Capital punishmen ...

activist Cecilia Chung,

immigration policy Immigration law includes the national statutes, regulations, and legal precedents governing immigration into and deportation from a country. Strictly speaking, it is distinct from other matters such as naturalization and citizenship, although the ...

analyst Alex Nowrasteh, political activist and writer Ron Unz, American journalist and editor-in-chief of the tech hub for

Medium Medium may refer to: Aircraft *Medium bomber, a class of warplane * Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Medium'' (1921 film), a German silent film * ''The Medium'' (1951 film), a film vers ...

Steven Levy Steven Levy (born 1951) is an American journalist and editor at large for '' Wired'' who has written extensively for publications on computers, technology, cryptography, the internet, cybersecurity, and privacy. He is the author of the 1984 boo ...

, former

United States Trade Representative The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is an agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government responsible for developing and promoting Foreign trade of the United States, United States ...

Ron Kirk Ronald Kirk (born June 27, 1954) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the United States Trade Representative from 2009 to 2013, as the 97th secretary of state of Texas, and as the 56th mayor of Dallas from 1995 to 2002. He is a me ...

Pixar Pixar (), doing business as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American animation studio based in Emeryville, California, known for its critically and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney ...

Research Group Lead Tony DeRose, and American political

satirist This is an incomplete list of writers, cartoonists and others known for involvement in satire – humorous social criticism. They are grouped by era and listed by year of birth. Included is a list of modern satires. Early satirical authors *Aes ...

P. J. O'Rourke. In 2016, the Forum hosted the 16th

United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development The United States secretary of housing and urban development is the head of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, a member of the Cabinet of the United States, and thirteenth in the presidential line of succession. T ...

, Julian Castro; the 17th

Director of Central Intelligence The director of central intelligence (DCI) was the head of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1946 to 2004, acting as the principal intelligence advisor to the president of the United States and the United States National Se ...

, John M. Deutch; the Director of the

Center for Bits and Atoms The Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) was established in 2001 in the MIT Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is currently run by Neil Gershenfeld. This cross-disciplinary center broadly looks at the intersection of information ...

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

, Neil Gershenfeld; the 28th

Chief Justice of California The Supreme Court of California is the Supreme court, highest and final court of appeals in the judiciary of California, courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly ...

, Tani Cantil-Sakauye;

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

of Liberty in North Korea, Hannah Song; prominent Norwegian politician Åslaug Haga; United States Ambassador to Vietnam

Ted Osius Theodore George Osius III (born 1961) is an American diplomat and the former United States Ambassador to Vietnam. Early life and education Osius grew up in Annapolis, Maryland. He attended The Putney School in Vermont, graduating in 1979. Osi ...

;

United States senator The United States Senate consists of 100 members, two from each of the 50 U.S. state, states. This list includes all senators serving in the 119th United States Congress. Party affiliation Independent Senators Angus King of Maine and Berni ...

from

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

Angus King Angus Stanley King Jr. (born March 31, 1944) is an American lawyer and politician who has served since 2013 as the Seniority in the United States Senate, junior United States senator from Maine. A Independent politician, political independent, h ...

; comedian Sammy Obeid; Director of

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

's Data Science Institute, Jeannette Wing; and Turkish journalist Mustafa Akyol.

Advisory committee

While the Berkeley Forum is a student-run organization, it is supported by a faculty advisory committee, which consists of the following professors:
Alexander CowardBrian Delay
* Christopher Edley
John Ellwood
* Alexei Filippenko *

Paul Pierson Paul Pierson (born 1959) is an American professor of political science specializing in comparative politics and holder of the John Gross Endowed Chair of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. From 2007-2010 he served at UC ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:The Berkeley Forum Berkeley Forum Berkeley Forum Berkeley Forum Berkeley Forum Student debating societies

Notable past events

Advisory committee

See also

References