Leading physicist resigns in protest after speaker invite request denied over George Floyd riot comments

A leading climate physicist at University of California, Berkeley, resigned in protest after his colleagues rejected his bid to invite a speaker to campus following outrage on the speaker’s views on the sweeping violence last summer after George Floyd’s death. 

"I hold BASC and its faculty – my friends and colleagues – in the highest regard, and so it has been a great honor to serve as BASC's director these past five years. But it was never my intention to lead an organization that is political or even ambiguously so," David Romps said in a Twitter thread explaining why he resigned as director of the Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center.

He resigned Monday after Berkeley rejected his request to invite Dorian Abbot to speak on campus, according to his Twitter thread. He will officially leave the position by the end of the year or when the school finds a replacement.