The University of California, Berkeley plans to launch the Nancy Pelosi Institute for Representative Democracy, a $50 million nonpartisan center for research, teaching and civic engagement, the university announced Monday. The school has raised $35 million toward its goal, including an undisclosed donation from the outgoing House speaker.
Pelosi, 86, will retire in January after representing San Francisco for 20 terms in the U.S. House. She is the first woman to lead a major political party in either chamber of Congress. As speaker, Pelosi helped President Barack Obama pass the Affordable Care Act and has been a prominent public critic of President Trump. She tore up his State of the Union speech in 2020.
In an interview, Pelosi insisted the new institute would not be aligned with party politics. “That’s not worthy of an academic institute,” she said. “I view this as something very nonpartisan.”
Berkeley, famed for the 1960s protests that launched the Free Speech Movement, has in recent years faced criticism for political polarization and disruptions of invited speakers. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonpartisan free-speech advocacy group, gave the university an F in its free-speech ranking this year, placing it 217th out of 252 schools.
Pelosi questioned FIRE’s methodology and suggested national disunity could ease after Trump leaves office. “I work in an institution right now that is pretty polarized because of an outside force that shall remain nameless,” she said. “But the fact is, there was a time not that long ago that wasn’t the way.”
Scott Straus, who chairs Berkeley’s political science department, likened the new institute to a West Coast version of Harvard’s Kennedy School. Straus said it will not have a freestanding building or offer graduate degrees, but will generate research, emphasize practical training and host world leaders to teach and mentor students. The university sends many graduates to the California legislature, he said.
Berkeley Chancellor Richard Lyons made a distinction between Pelosi as a partisan political leader and as a public servant. “The impact of her life and career is unassailable,” Lyons said. “Whether one agrees with her policy stances and her values or not, she can help us understand what impact looks like.”
Pelosi is scheduled to co-teach an undergraduate class with Eric Schickler, a political science professor who teaches about the U.S. Congress. “The goal is to bring together political science ideas and theory and knowledge about how to overcome political obstacles to make change,” Schickler said. “Obviously, that’s something that Speaker Pelosi has done quite a lot of in her career.”