UC Berkeley orders cancellation of Ann Coulter speech

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | April 19, 2017 | Nanette Asimov

[artichokegrower]

Next week’s scheduled speech by right-wing pundit Ann Coulter at UC Berkeley is off — for now — because campus officials say they won’t be able to protect participants from rioting if it should happen.

"We have been unable to find a safe and suitable venue for your planned April 27 event featuring Ann Coulter," vice chancellors Scott Biddy and Stephen Sutton emailed the student groups co-hosting the event — the Berkeley College Republicans and BridgeUSA — Tuesday evening.

[TChad]

Ahh, the Berkeley No Speech Movement of 2017.

No conservative speech. If you are to the left of Karl Marx, you can speak all you want to.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Start by expelling the fascists.

[Intolerant in NJ]

...because campus officials say they won’t be able to protect participants from rioting if it should happen...hmm - imagine what would have happened had the feds claimed this when the civil-rights types were marching in the south....

[Let's Roll]

Berkeley signs up people they know will present truth and common sense so they can cancel those speakers and make points with the snowflakes.

[a fool in paradise]

Despotism.

They have no tolerance for dissent from far left rhetoric .

[sport]

Well, yeah. I should have put up until last week.Time will tell whether this was a flash in the pan or the tide is turning and we will no longer stand idly by while our elderly are assaulted and pepper sprayed with impunity. I am happy to be corrected on this.

[Verginius Rufus]

Angela Davis was at a different university in the UC system.

One of my professors at Berkeley (now deceased) was very conservative and anti-Soviet. He was hired in the 1960s--almost didn't get hired because of his known conservative views. He didn't bring his political views into the classroom, but he did sometimes have provocative cartoons on his door. I wonder if he would have a chance now.

[Hebrews 11:6]

I was a high school senior in 1965, planning to become an architect, and there were three accredited architecture schools in California: USC, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and Cal Berkeley (Stanford's wasn't accredited). I had a full-ride State Scholarship in my pocket, so SC's tuition was no problem; CP SLO was unattractive to an LA city-boy; and it looked like Governor Reagan was about to shut Berkeley down.

FIGHT ON!

[Migraine]

So: how was USC for you, and did you do architecture? Inquiring minds want to know. BTW, I was a year ahead of you in matriculation.

[kaehurowing]

One of my professors in law school was the attorney for Mario Savio and the Free Speech Movement. Very much a liberal, but someone I would call an honest liberal. He was very willing to engage in a civil discussion with everyone and to acknowledge when he thought philosophical opponents made valid points. Actually one of my favorite professors, I had a lot of respect for him although I was pretty conservative even back then. As a mark of his honesty, he actually came out in favor of Milo Yiannopoulis speaking at Berkeley and said that as a public university the university was obligated to let him speak under the First Amendment and should provide an equal forum for all speakers, left and right.

[Migraine]

Interesting. Thanks. He must have been a VERY young professor. Not many who can span Savio and Milo in any relevant way.

[Personal Responsibility]

“I think Rolling Thunder should offer their services of keeping the peace.”

Not only will the officials be unable to provide security, you can bet the house that they’d actively work to prevent outside groups from doing so.

[Hebrews 11:6]

SC was great as a university. Its professional schools enjoy well-deserved excellent reputations, but in the late '60s its Architecture School turned out to be a complete shambles: exactly two from my '66 entering class of 210 became actual architects (I'm one of the 208). Both Cal Poly's and Berkeley's Schools were far superior then, to my chagrin.

Which is not to say that I would ever have become even a mediocre architect, even given the right environs, a fact I appreciate now with fifty years' hindsight. Eventually, I switched to Business Administration. The Lord had other things, much better things, uniquely for me.

[SteveH]

free speech monument

roadside america
April 20, 2017

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/30278

[...]

In 1989 an unusual monument won a contest commemorating the 25th anniversary, and was erected in 1991 in front of the steps of Sproul Hall, the first spot the college permitted political "discussions."

The monument, by artist Mark Brest van Kempen, is a 6-ft. wide granite circle with a 6-inch hole in the middle. The hole contains some dirt, and is the base of an invisible column of air that extends 60,000 ft. into the sky to the vacuum of space. The monument is flat against the ground in the middle of a busy pedestrian plaza between university buildings.

The chiseled circular inscription reads: "This soil and the air space extending above it shall not be a part of any nation and shall not be subject to any entity's jurisdiction.

[...]