Radical leftists at the University of California, Berkeley — the so-called “home of the free speech movement” — are, once again, trying to make it the place where free speech goes to die.
The latest display of leftist intolerance comes after the Berkeley College Republicans worked with Young America’s Foundation to bring the Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles to campus for a lecture on October 7.
For boldly working to bring Knowles and his conservative point of view to their peers, the conservative student organizers received death threats and, short of that, threats to banish them from campus.
After the wildly successful Knowles lecture, members of UC Berkeley’s student government condemned the student activists who’d worked with YAF to host the event and threatened to hold them “accountable” for the supposed crime of creating an opportunity for the free and open exchange of ideas and calling out the anti-science transgender ideology that incorrectly insists men can be women and women can be men.
The tyrants in training within Berkeley’s student government further threatened to boot the College Republicans from campus and declared they would propose a “resolution to prevent any student organization from reserving campus space or allowing speakers to come on campus if their activities promote hate speech or create an unsafe environment for any students.”
Not only are Berkeley leftists incorrect about Knowles’ speech nor advertisements stating “Eradicate Transgenderism” being hateful or constituting incitement, but even if “hate speech” did occur, it’s still expression protected under the First Amendment.
In a stunning show of weakness, UC Berkeley Chancellor Richard Lyons piled on with his intolerant students and released a video message saying he was “dismayed by recent posters calling for the elimination of transgender people” despite the fact that no such posters were ever displayed.
This supposed “leader” either willfully lied about the text on posters calling for an end to the deeply flawed transgenderism movement or should take a remedial reading course.
In a twist, those lamenting supposedly hateful speech calling for violence have gone and done exactly that: posters have appeared around campus declaring “KILL DONALD TRUMP AND ALL CAMPUS REPUBLICANS.”
UC Berkeley, of course, has already gone down the road of caving to fragile leftist students. In 2017, administrators engaged in a pattern of unconstitutional discrimination against the Berkeley College Republicans and Young America’s Foundation. For their actions, YAF sued UC Berkeley — and won.
As a result, Berkeley had to agree to several terms to ensure its policies were viewpoint-neutral and conservative students would not be deprived of their rights:
Now, however, it seems Berkeley is ready to again cave to unhinged leftists and allow them to again engage in viewpoint-discriminatory behavior.
Just as in 2017, Berkeley College Republicans and YAF are not — and will not be — backing down. Instead, YAF calls on Chancellor Lyons to uphold the First Amendment rights of all students, condemn calls for the murder of conservatives, and reject the whims of the school’s intolerant leftists. YAF is considering all legal remedies if UC Berkeley again violates the God-given rights protected by the U.S. Constitution.
