Under mounting pressure from pro-Hamas campus radicals who have been staging violent protests and encampments for weeks, the University of California-Los Angeles has canceled a pro-Israel event that was scheduled for this evening.
Young America’s Foundation speaker and counter-Jihad expert Robert Spencer was scheduled to take the stage at 6:00 PM. However, the YAF advance team discovered that the doors of the Bruin Viewpoint Room were locked.
After contacting university officials, YAF was informed that the event would need to be moved to a low-traffic, remote location–an unacceptable last minute change that would have significantly impacted the event’s attendance and impact.
The move is also a clear violation of students’ constitutional rights.
For weeks, UCLA administrators have stalled the approval process in a clear attempt to ensure the event would not happen.
They started by warning that if the school’s pro-Hamas encampment was still in place on event day, it would be too dangerous to host an event where views in opposition to the campus radicals are expressed.
YAF, with the support of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, contested this decision, arguing that it constituted an unconstitutional use of the heckler’s veto. This legal pressure seemed to prompt the university to reconsider.
Unfortunately, this did not turn out to be the case. Administrators continued their attempts to threaten and dissuade the Young Americans for Freedom chapter leaders into capitulation.
While the chapter boldly withstood these attacks, and things appeared to be moving forward, there was simply nothing they could do about the locked door, which administrators refused to open.
“I am deeply disappointed in UCLA’s failure to protect our First Amendment rights,” remarked Matthew Weinberg, chairman of UCLA YAF. “All we wanted was a successful Pro-Israel event where people of all backgrounds and viewpoints can engage in the free exchange of ideas and here a different perspective not heard across university campuses, and the school made that impossible. This is nothing but an act of pure cowardice.”
“UCLA and other universities today are not institutions of higher learning; they are radioactive wastelands of hard-left indoctrination,” Robert Spencer remarked.
The University of California system does not have a great track record when it comes to legal battles with Young America’s Foundation. Administrators were clearly warned that they can and will be held personally liable, should they move forward with their unconstitutional censorship techniques. They’ve made their decision, and YAF is fully committed to doing whatever it takes to defend our student’s First Amendment rights.
