Cal chancellor Nicholas Dirks resigns

The Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley submitted his resignation Tuesday evening amid allegations that he mishandled multiple sexual harassment cases as well as the school’s budget.

Dirks, who was appointed as chancellor in 2013, was nearly immediately met with criticism at a university where steep tuition hikes have mobilized student activism about public education.

Just as students pour back onto campus, UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, who recently had said he hoped to serve for another ten years, has announced he will resign, though not until the end of the year.

Moving forward, the UC Office of the President will form a committee to search for the next UC Berkeley chancellor, though Mogulof would not comment on the exact date by which Dirks officially will step down and return to teaching.

“I have come to the personal decision that the time is right for me to step aside and allow someone else to take up the financial and institutional challenges ahead of us”, he said in a written statement.

Details about when UC will pick the next chancellor of the campus is not available at this time. “We seek nothing less than an individual of the highest caliber to lead Berkeley, widely and correctly regarded as the finest public research university in the world”, she said.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks speaks during a vigil in honor of Nicolas Leslie, a student killed in an attack in Nice, France, on July 18, 2016 at Sproul Plaza in Berkeley, California. But in April, Dirks disclosed that the university would be cutting 500 staff positions over two years in an effort to erase a large budget deficit.

The impending announcement follows a string of controversies in the past year – including a widespread university sexual harassment scandal – that cost the chancellor his faculty’s trust.

In one instance, The New York Times reports that Dirks’ gave the dean of Berkeley’s law school a slap on the wrist after an investigation revealed that he had forcefully kissed and touched a subordinate, imposing only a temporary pay cut and mandatory counseling. He plans to remain on the faculty after leaving the chancellorship.