Posted on 04/21/2017 9:25:25 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Ann Coulter has rejected the University of California, Berkeley's re-invitation to speak on campus, according to Fox News.
On Thursday, a day after calling off Coulter's upcoming appearance for security reasons, university officials backtracked and paved the way for her to speak to students on May 2.
But the right-wing provocateur responded via Twitter on Thursday, indicating they've already spent money for the previously scheduled event on April 27, and she's not available to speak on the new date. Then she
On Twitter, she also brushed off Berkeley's statement "claiming they 'rescinded' cancelation." Instead she condemned officials for adding "NEW, more burdensome" conditions on her constitution rights. University officials on Thursday said they've found a venue for the rescheduled event, but they did not reveal the specific location.
Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said they originally canceled Coulter because of student safety. But because she is vowing to speak anyway, the university found a new venue.
"As the home of the free speech movement, we fully support the right of our students to host speakers of their choice," Dirks said. "We also have an unwavering commitment to providing for the safety and well being of speakers who come to campus, our students and other members of our campus."
The university said an "expanded search" has uncovered a venue on campus that meets their security criteria.
UC Berkeley officials said Wednesday that they were "unable to find a safe and suitable" venue for the right-wing provocateur who was invited to speak by campus Republicans on April 27. Further details about the decision reversal were not immediately available.
The hubbub sparked Tuesday when Vice Chancellor Scott Biddy sent a letter the Berkeley College Republicans, saying that university officials in consultation with campus police had determined they could not ensure the safety of Coulter, audience members or protesters expected at the event.
News organizations obtained a copy of the letter Wednesday.
"Unfortunately, UCPD determined that, given currently active security threats, it is not possible to assure that the event could be held successfully ... at any of the campus venues available on April 27th," the letter said. University spokesman Dan Mogulof said that posters went up on campus last week threatening disruption of the event and officials discovered "targeted threats" on various websites indicating the possibility of planned violence.
"We realize that this is disappointing news," Biddy's letter said, promising that campus police and officials will work the Berkeley College Republicans to find another time and date for Coulter's speech.
UC Berkeley said it did not have enough advance notice to provide security for the Coulter event.
"We learned about the invitation to Ms. Coulter by reading about it in the newspaper," university officials said.
Berkeley College Republicans said that's not true, that they provided plenty of notice about their plans.
The cancellation comes days after violent clashes between far-right and far-left protesters Saturday at a rally supporting President Donald Trump in downtown Berkeley.
An appearance at UC Berkeley by former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos was canceled after protesters rioted outside the event in February.
UC Berkeley police said there won't be a repeat of what unfolded during the Yiannopoulos melee, when people who had infiltrated the protest started smashing windows and lighting fires.
"Our approach is going to be different than the approach for the Milo event, again based on our after-action review," UC Berkeley police Capt. Alex Yao said.
Organizers of the event released their own statement Wednesday, expressing discontentment at the change in plans.
They wrote: "UC-Berkeley, a publicly-funded university, first imposed a series of ridiculous requirements on the speech allegedly in the name of 'safety.' Coulter, we were informed, would be required to deliver her speech in the afternoon; only students would be allowed to attend; and the speech location would not be announced until close to the event."
Although Berkeley College Republicans advised Coulter not to agree to those stipulations, she did, they wrote. In return, she asked the chancellor to help ensure appropriate police response to "law-breaking by rioters attempting to shut down conservative speakers," according to the statement.
Coulter reportedly also asked Berkeley officials to warn students that "engaging in violence, mayhem or heckling" to prevent the speech would result in expulsion, the statement said.
The Berkeley College Republicans reported Coulter as having said, "If Berkeley wants to have free speech, it can have it."
The group lashed out in its statement, accusing university officials of misusing taxpayer money for an "unconstitutional purpose" and comparing Biddy and UC President Janet Napolitano to North Korea's authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un. l "This is as clear-cut a case as it gets that public universities are using taxpayer dollars to shut down conservative speech, while allowing liberal speech only," they wrote.
Group members have stressed that they have "no intention of acceding to these unconstitutional acts. The Ann Coulter lecture sponsored by Young Americas Foundation will go forward."
Coulter herself said in a tweet Wednesday she's still planning on coming to Berkeley to speak and blasted the school for canceling the event.
Stalwarts for the Right like Coulter and Palin get spit on at the first opportunity.
“I think factoryrat was talking about the UC Soft Unsciences.”
Probably true! I remember that the L&S “students” were the one’s that had the time to protest, we didn’t. I was there for Mario Savio and the “Free Speech Movement.” Thankfully, Engineering is tucked off in the NE corner of the campus almost diametrically opposed to Sproul Plaza where all the crap goes on. And I remember “fondly” Jerry Brown’s father, as governor, using a National Guard Helicopter to gas the folks assembled there on one occasion.
I seem to recall that wasn't the ACLU's attitude when the Illinois NAZIs decided to do a march through a Jewish suburb of Skokie, outside of Chicago. The ACLU defended the NAZIs rights to free speech.
So, where the heck is the ACLU now, defending "unpopular" speech by Conservatives? Well, we all knew it was never about freedom, liberty, or any Constitutional values. It was because the ACLU LOVES NAZIs, they LOVE the hard left authoritarian policies of the NAZIs, but hate the idea of freedom and liberty. The ACLU is foursquare against any views, other than those that advance the power of government, and actively work against the ultimate minority, the rights of the individual.
Mark
They're practically one and the same.
The administration fully support the hard left rioters, all the way from the top down, starting with that leftist hag Napolitano.
Mark
She was an early supporter of President Trump in 2015, and predicted on Bill Mahr's show that he would be the pubbie candidate in 2016, to gales of hysterical laughter.
Mark
Yes, and it's been done before to enforce federal law.
President Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock to force the city & state to abide by the Brown vs Topeka BoE, where the AR government blocked Black children from attending a formerly all White public school.
The POTUS IS the CinC of the National Guard.
Mark
Apparently, Mark Levin has suggested that POTUS call in some type of troops to protect Ann, and free speech. IIRC, National Guard was mentioned.
POTUS or the AG needs to address the squelching of Americans’ free speech by Soros-paid criminals. How dare violent MASKED thugs defy OUR Constitution without recrimination? What the hell, anyhow?
And why is the Soros family free to roam the earth, and America in particular? There must be hundreds of criminal acts that they’ve committed. Arrest them, find their assets, confiscate all of the $$, and lock them up forever.
"ANTIFA," yet another example of leftist irony (which of course, they never get...)
So called "ANTIFA," or anti-fascist, which uses fascist tactics no different than that of Mussolini, the Brownshirts, or the Bolshevicks, to shut down speech of those with whom they disagree. And they use violence to achieve their ends.
I just love the hypocrisy and irony when I see some violent leftist who's shouting down a speaker claim that the speaker is a fascist!
If leftists had a sense of humor, they'd be rolling on the floor laughing.
Mark
Plan the rally and simply not show up.
Cool. When does Howie Scream enroll in the Spandau Ballet?
He'll look great in hemp.
How is my old Cal Poly SLO stacking up in engineering
these days vettester?
Yes, I saw the footage of them marching to the pro-Trump rally, all masked, tearing through the flimsy plastic barricade to get in people’s faces and then it went downhill from there.
I would call that a violent militia or terrorist activity. It’s outrageous.
A show of overwhelming force is needed, and NOT under the Berkeley PD control.
Just sent this to the LA Times look for it NOT to be published.
Re: Ann Coulter Vows to Speak and editorial First Amendment
For a few years a disturbing issue has emerged, that students in universities have a right to an intellectual safe space and to not be offended by speech with which they disagree. There are no such rights. There is the right to not attend or walk out if you choose, but not to stifle the free speech rights of the speaker and those who issued the invitation. Administrators and public officials have the responsibility to clearly explain this to the student populace, but few have done so.
At Cal, Janet Napolitano and Jerry Brown have surrendered to the domestic terrorists who set buildings on fire, overturn cars and smash windows. If they will not provide safety for those exercising their first amendment rights, as they have sworn to do, then it behooves the president to do so. There is precedent in Little Rock and Alabama, when presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy stepped up to ensure the rights of black students to attend public schools and colleges. This is an opportunity to teach Cal students and the administration an important lesson regarding the constitutional rights of their fellow citizens.
https://youtu.be/QKydKJKTixo?t=45
(strikes innocent, sitting guy over skull with heavy bike-lock)
The AntiFa man who wantonly struck over the head an innocently sitting man with a BIKE LOCK is this man:
Diablo Valley College (Calif) Prof. of Philosophy ERIC CLANTON
Diablo Valley is next to Concord, about 20 or so miles east of Berkeley:
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.9731038,-122.1006238,13z
Left smiling golf hat= perp, Right reclined= victim
http://www.dvc.edu/directory/profiles/clanton-eric/index.html
Diablo Valley College
Pleasant Hill Campus
78498
EClanton@dvc.edu
H113
UPDATE: He did this attack type to at least FOUR different people..!
So, she’s not responsible for him.
Berkeley “officials” are nitwits and typical lunatic LIBs. What’s new? Typical.
It’s easy to forget, especially from the news as of late, that UC Berkeley actually has (had?) real hard science/engineering curriculum. Too bad that the current state of affairs has tarnished an otherwise excellent technical university.
That means her invitation to speak should be withdrawn, thereby allowing hecklers and rioters veto power who gets to speak and who doesn’t?
That means her invitation to speak should be withdrawn, thereby allowing hecklers and rioters veto power who gets to speak and who doesn’t?
Good call by Coulter, rejecting the ‘alternative’ scheduling.
It was a bluff anyway. Had she accepted this change, the Fascist university would have concocted some other reason to deny her a venue.
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