I'm a student at Berkeley, and the past week has been incredibly difficult. Although I agree with the free expression of speech, at a certain point, the people coming on campus started to do it as provacateurs. Our school lacks the money that many other schools do, yet we are being used as a battleground. That money spent on security for speakers with little academic value could have been used to pay for students' tuition and housing. It could have built new dorms. It could have expanded financial aid. It could have brought in valuable speakers. It could have helped reduce food insecurity among students. Hell, it could have brought back late-night food in the dining halls. However, instead, it was used for protection because of the sheer vitriol these speakers spew. When speakers come, buildings are closed. Avoiding Sproul Plaza takes extra time. We just want our educations. I came to Berkeley, in part, because of its history of activism, but there was a point at which this school's activism started being used against it. And that's not right.
"Should public institutions be spending taxpayer money allocated for higher education on speakers who aren’t there for teaching and learning?"
So, who makes the judgement about who is and who is not "there for teaching and learning"?
Plenty of speakers appearing on campus expressing left-wing views are "not there for teaching and learning".
So, no "taxpayer money" "allocated on" them either.
Just don't spend any money on security at all -- not for any speakers.
Just let the chips fall where they may.
Just so that, whatever decision is made about providing or not providing police
is the same regardless who the speaker is and what he is saying.
Sunday's NYTimes had a piece on free speech as it relates to Berkeley. Most comments were opposite to the thread today. Does that mean that readers are schizophrenic or that they follow the 'messaging and tone' of NYTime published stories? Or, is there something else at work? Me thinks readers have lost their ability for critical thinking, as have the students and 'professors' at Berkeley.
While no one should pay for extraordinary security for someone's speech, a million dollars is obviously Berkeley's response to their obvious opposition to anything other than far left ideology. Shame on Berkeley, but I've always known they are not a university that espouses free thinking. Quite the contrary.
4
the left is so easily snared by those they disagree with. they simply should ignore these idiots and they would find another playground. but no, the lefties MUST engage to prove and demonstrate their bona fides. the left is so easily played! and the money for their protests? they could care less because they are on the path of truth and goodness!
3
The right doesn't care about free speech. Previously, they used threats of withholding donations and endowments to stop left wing speakers. Try inviting Richard Falk and see what happens. Now they are increasing the monetary cost to make administrations pass strict rules that will curtail the activities of Black Lives Matter, BDS, Occupy Wall Street groups among others. Their ends may be more strategic than at first apparent.
It's a shame that such an article is written by a professor. The reason that the security costs for this were so high isn't because of the speakers, but rather the organized, violent reaction to them. Milo Yiannopoulos may be unlikeable and and provocative to his opponents, but he isn't the one throwing rocks at police, breaking windows, starting fires, and physically assaulting people. That's what the so-called "anti-Fascist demonstrators" do. Take these people out of the equation, and you are left with a sorry fringe-political clown and a sparse crowd heckling him. In his role as a professor, he should not be justifying the actions of violent students by blaming their victims. He should be defending academic freedom and free speech at all costs.
7
Milo,
Stand on milk crate in a park and start speaking.
Let people know when you'll be there.
That's free speech and it's free.
2
I never understood why Berkeley would agree to use tax money and tuition ($61,654 out of state) to provide a platform for right wing drivel that can be seen on YouTube for free.
3
Do you think Trump/Milo/Alt Right are trying to financially sink UC Berkeley as one of their M.O.s to destroy Berkeley's progressive left politics? I hope not. Is this like a military insertion? I hope not.
5
Ironic how we are parsing freedom of speech rights this week: when you're an overpaid player of children's sports - it is all good - when you are challenging the liberal orthodoxy of a place of learning [that should know better] it is a stunt.
What a strange time we live in.
3
For all of the people claiming that this is an ‘invented controversy’, or that Milo is making things up, or anything along that vein; remember, it wasn't Yiannapoulos who came up with this million dollar security. That was assessed as necessary by the university itself, which, it so happens, leans broadly liberal.
In other words, yes, the threat of violence from liberal anti-free speech groups is real and serious. According to the University of Berkeley.
8
Claiming that prohibitive security costs justify squelching controversial speech is tantamount to appointing violent thugs as official censors. This cowardly acquiescence in the face of threats undermines our free society far more than the speakers themselves. Rioters can not be allowed to decide who is and who is not a "fascist" and who gets to speak and who doesn't. Place the blame where it belongs, on the so-called "antifascist" thugs! They're the real fascists in this story.
9
Mr. Hanlon, makes 3 critical errors in his analysis:
1) He equates Conservatives with white supremacists. These two have nothing in common.
2) He equates Antifa with "those that opposed Hitler and Mussolini". These groups are entirely oppose to each other.
3) He claims Conservatives only exist to disrupt campuses. That's a complete dismissal of their message and their beliefs. That is like saying "the LGBT serves the sole purpose of offending Christians and muslims. Thus all their existence and causes can be dismissed".
8
"Undoubtedly, left-wing “antifa” groups have contributed to the security risks and costs at Berkeley
Hogwash! They are 100% responsible for these costs.
"Antifa groups are a symptom, not a cause, of the threat of white supremacist violence."
Absurd. They are against free speech rights for anyone they disagree with (not jus white supremeacists). This includes capitalists, neo-liberals, and anyone who agrees with the US Constitution.
9
Once again, this non-event is straight out of the Putin/Bannon disrupt, dismantle, destabilize, deconstruction-of-the-administrative-state playbook.
Why even leave a comment on a very biased, one sided opinion letter? Not news letter.
3
Oh no a college had to spend money on its students instead of just sucking it up.
I went to MIT, I know how much it sucks to realize you will be paying off an education for something like 40 years.
To then be forced into some liberal-only thought bubble for 4 years is a diservice to all the people paying $60,000 a year for an education. When I went to MIT we had free exchange of thought. Nowadays, MIT has shut down all avenues for independent thinking, including by shutting down the most free dorm, Senior Haus. Thats where I lived and thats where I learned. We used to paint on the walls, smoke on the roof, and discuss philosophy with no limits until the sun came up and we were out of adderall and cocaine.
Now Senior Haus is a sterile dorm with no freedom. I cried when I saw the pictures of 30 years of free thought covered up and suppressed forever.
Liberal dogma has become a force that is out to destroy and sterilize college campuses. To prevent people for experiencing new or different thoughts, the dogma is enforced to the T through the new power of social media and Antifa.
Now when I meet a fellow college grad, they almost always refuse to discuss anything. You bring up a controversial subject to a liberal, like the effect of gang violence on inner city communities and they shut you down. You CAN decry police brutality, but as soon as you stray away from the idea that all police are inhuman racists, you are shut down.
Its a sad sad conformity.
I went to MIT, I know how much it sucks to realize you will be paying off an education for something like 40 years.
To then be forced into some liberal-only thought bubble for 4 years is a diservice to all the people paying $60,000 a year for an education. When I went to MIT we had free exchange of thought. Nowadays, MIT has shut down all avenues for independent thinking, including by shutting down the most free dorm, Senior Haus. Thats where I lived and thats where I learned. We used to paint on the walls, smoke on the roof, and discuss philosophy with no limits until the sun came up and we were out of adderall and cocaine.
Now Senior Haus is a sterile dorm with no freedom. I cried when I saw the pictures of 30 years of free thought covered up and suppressed forever.
Liberal dogma has become a force that is out to destroy and sterilize college campuses. To prevent people for experiencing new or different thoughts, the dogma is enforced to the T through the new power of social media and Antifa.
Now when I meet a fellow college grad, they almost always refuse to discuss anything. You bring up a controversial subject to a liberal, like the effect of gang violence on inner city communities and they shut you down. You CAN decry police brutality, but as soon as you stray away from the idea that all police are inhuman racists, you are shut down.
Its a sad sad conformity.
9
Perhaps the biggest problem at Berkeley, and completely ignored in this opinion piece, is the fact that earlier in the year students and outside agitators trashed the campus rioting because someone was going to give a speech on campus, with the venue and date approved. Instead of either not going to the speech OR going and discussing one's different opinion, these students and outside agitators decided to trash the campus.
Well done Berkeley! Not.
5
I find the self- righteous comments that lay blame on Antifa and other protesters to be disingenuous. Speakers like MY and AC are provocateurs by their own admission. That means they are trying to provoke a reaction. Should we be surprised when they succeed? Sure, it would be best if very few people showed up at these events and people ignored the speakers, but that is asking for a very high bar of self-restraint for liberal students and letting the provocateurs off the hook for "asking for it". Vandalism is a crime and those responsible should be prosecuted, but I am tired of the hypocritical double standard of conservatives who complain about their wounded feelings, ignored opinions, and disrespected ideas while mocking, taunting, and insulting those who disagree with them. What goes around comes around.
1
The irony of how to deal with Yiannopoulos is that he wouldn’t be able to get away for ONE SECOND with what he is trying to do here in his native United Kingdom, where there are (for better or worse) greater constraints on “free speech”. So how much are we willing to subsidize — let alone tolerate — foreign agents provocateurs?
2
Free speech week is a 'stunt?' Guess the NYTimes and progressives get to decide what we hear on campus these days. But, I'd like to remind Berkeley and the NYTimes that free speech is exactly the idea that they are trying to kill. The problem isn't free speech, it's really the idea that a campus must have so much security in the first place. One must ask why. The answer is clear - the university and the NYTimes do not support free speech and, as a consequence, we now need massive security to even think about free speech.
Seems that if Berkeley had supported the speaker earlier this year and arrested all those that burned buildings, broke windows, and attacked students that thought differently from themselves, there would be no need for security. But that would mean that we all admit that none of us are right all the time. God forbid!
7
As many commenters have said, the high security price tag is the fault of Antifa, not Yiannopoulos (who I personally despise).
However, as other commenters have said, Berkeley shouldn't be required to foot that bill. The school should be entitled to deny hosting a speaker if they cannot afford security. Seems like a matter of budgeting more than free speech.
Yes, this means Yiannopoulos is penalized for Antifa's acts, but this is a cost he would have to bear if he were speaking at a private venue—not an issue Berkeley should have to be responsible for.
However, as other commenters have said, Berkeley shouldn't be required to foot that bill. The school should be entitled to deny hosting a speaker if they cannot afford security. Seems like a matter of budgeting more than free speech.
Yes, this means Yiannopoulos is penalized for Antifa's acts, but this is a cost he would have to bear if he were speaking at a private venue—not an issue Berkeley should have to be responsible for.
Free speech doesn't mean you get to pick your platform. These right wing hate speakers are going out of their way to prolong their 15 minutes of fame by claiming no fair when a university won't bow to their request for a venue.
How does that make any sense, I wouldn't be permitted to throw a party at my university without getting permission from the university and without following the rules for the venue, including security rules. Milo is free to rent our a space somewhere else and pay the costs, including security and insurance, that come along with the venue, the universities are not required to play along with someone that has no connection to their institution.
How does that make any sense, I wouldn't be permitted to throw a party at my university without getting permission from the university and without following the rules for the venue, including security rules. Milo is free to rent our a space somewhere else and pay the costs, including security and insurance, that come along with the venue, the universities are not required to play along with someone that has no connection to their institution.
1
Last hear I went to hear the mainstream conservative Yuval Levin speak at UC Berkeley. There were about 30 people in the room, more than half of whom appeared to be over 40 years old (i.e., not students). I have read two of Levin's books, and I don't think they are deep works of scholarship, but they at least engage and wrestle with ideas. It seems to me that if the people complaining about lack of conservative views on campuses were really concerned about that, they could have found the time to attend Levin's talk instead of inventing controversies and wasting taxpayer money.
Free speech is one of our most sacred democratic rights. This does not mean I have any fondness for "what's his name" but I admire UCB for doing its best to bring light to what free speech really means to our society and the cost we must bear to ensure this sacred right is protected.
The 2017 Pentagon budget is $583 billion dollars and is theoretically spent to protect our democratic rights. Is this too much? If it isn't, then $1.5 million is a small price we pay to protect our collective free speech rights.
By the way, turning your back to the nonsense he and those like him espouse doesn't cost anything. If he doesn't have an audience he will fade away.
1
Security for what exactly?
Are the thought police so angry and out of control that speakers they disagree with are in physical danger?
If so, they're the ones costing the university; not the the speakers (however controversial they may be)
10
No one is forcing an audience to attend and if the student left were confident they would ignore the obvious provocation by simply going about their business.
Reason is never advanced by provable misinterpretation and manipulation of facts or violence.
3
If they have a budget deficit of $150 million, there must be a lot of things they shouldn’t be spending money on.
3
Perhaps. But as a state university, they could get more support from the state, like they used to have.
Not his fault that Berkeley has rioters and protesters all the time?
Perhaps the citizens should re think this issue...............they're paying the price
for this motley crew to exist
2
Let me be very clear on this subject.
While the exact cause of the collapse of the event is subject to debate, i.e. who was responsible for what being taken care of, the exact cause of the security force is not up for debate.
In an educational setting, especially one supported by tax dollars, the First Amendment is always supreme. The freedom to speak, the freedom to assemble, and the freedom to freely associate is beyond question. Need I remind you of multiple SCOTUS decisions on this issue? Or maybe the millions of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines who went and are still going into combat to insure that right around the globe.
The cabal of ironically named “AntiFa”, consisting of the extreme left wing Fascists, Liberals, Socialists, and Communists, are the root cause of the expense.
No nation should tolerate the use of physical or verbal violence promulgated by this sort of fringe {dis}organization. As we have seen they are a threat to the rights of all of us. That makes AntiFa, and their fiscal backers, a criminal organization and subject to prosecution under the RICO act.
No your thesis that Milo cost the University of California a dime is wrong. Without the criminals taking violent action he would have spoken in a hall filled to capacity with empty seats.
Instead blaming the criminals you seek to shift the blame on the victim.
13
Thank you.
1
Mark Bray does a real disservice in buying into ANTIFA's claims about it's purpose. They are primarily communist and anti-capitalist and are violent.
What was ANTIFA violently protesting against years ago? The World Trade Organization in 1999. Celebrating Communist holidays and protesting against Wall Street.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/18/us/unmasking-antifa-anti-fascists-hard-lef...
This is not some romantic pro-freedom anti-fascist, anti-white supremacist movement.
11
Mark Bray is part of Antifa. I know several Dartmouth grads who have stopped donating to the school. Hundreds of thousands gone.
3
I wish you took the scare quotes in your title seriously.
Although I realize the risk is great, because politicians, I think its time we developed some subtlety in our thinking about free speech.
For example that there is a difference between free speech and simple provocation with no intent to communicate.
From the free speech side, Milo and fellow man-boy-love advocates, white supremacists, Nazi wannabes, and professional instigators have every opportunity to share their bile and their poison; no one is seriously attempting to shut them up.
That does not equate to a right to their message to any venue they feel like, at any time they wish, armed with or dressed in whatever they feel like. If they persist, they certainly have a responsibility to pay for their own safety and the care of whatever venue the choose to defile.
Intent merely to provoke is clear in such cases, and it is not the same as speech. Any more than money is.
As we have been reminded of late, Milo and Ann and Rush and, oh God so many others, are playing the same cynical game that brought the real Nazi to power: whimpering about being victimized and deprived of rights until they gain power and then shutting everybody down, making rights moot or grounds for conviction, and crushing the State that made them possible in the first place.
We need to be smarter than that. Everyone has a right to be heard. But, having spoken, we all have a right for them to stop talking and listen for a response.
1
Interesting points... but you couldn't think of a single LEFT-wing provocateur... someone whose ideas are extreme, offensive to a great many people....?
No, I didn't think so.
Because of course, by your definition, any Left/Liberal/Progressive views are 'an important part of the national conversation....
3
Berkely and the media have created the conditions where it takes an entire police force to protect someone with "a different opinion". This is shocking to say the least. Now they are complaining that it costs money? The Nytimes, yet again, holds Antifa and BLM entirely exempt of any wrongdoing, placing the blame on Milo, for "selfishly" daring to speak in public. Unbelievable.
12
Can anyone defending the likes of mendacious provocateurs like Milo Yiannopoulos show us where the First Amendment requires universities---or any other institution---to accept any and all speakers, at any time, for any reason, with no discretion allowed on their part to reject any applicants?
No one is "suppressing" the free speech of Yiannopoulos or any of his equally repugnant right-wing provocateurs. They can speak on the streets, in a private home, in a rented hotel ballroom, or a thousand other places where no one will attempt to stop them or arrest them for what they have to say.
This is all a pretense on their part. Their real objective is to "embarrass" our major universities and other institutions and then provoke a very small handful of people who will often act out violently and use them as a straw man to condemn "the left" and the "leftist, politically correct faculty and administration who defend them."
But We The People are beginning to figure all of this out. We're on to you, Milo, and your obvious and desperate attempt to shift the focus from your abhorrent comments regarding adult males having sexual relations with underage boys just won't work.
3
Is it the admittedly vile Milo, or the counter-protesters and antifa that are raising the price tag?
13
If Mr. Hanlon wants to discuss prudent expenditures at college campuses versus security costs for protecting free speech, I suggest he turn to luxurious accommodations and amenities that my tax dollars have paid and continue to pay for all in the name of attracting "diversity" to various campuses.
In the hunt for the creme de la creme, colleges have turned their once sleepy dormitories into 5-star resorts for pampered snowflakes and raised tuition for students and taxes for citizens to pay for it all.
Between security for speakers who make you uncomfortable versus luxury hotels, I'd rather have my tax dollars spent on the security. If you want to cut those costs, talk to the cowards in black masks and ask them to leave your campus alone and find a real job.
9
Finally someone with logic and sense.
3
It's extremely dangerous to argue that controversial speakers should be banned based on the costs of protests against them. That's the financial version of a heckler's veto. Why should any college pay for extra police to handle a protest? If there's a mass shooter on campus, the college doesn't pay the cops who show up to deal with a crime. Stopping criminal activity is a government responsibility, not a university's financial obligation. If we allow Milo to be banned because of the costs from protests against him, what happens when white supremacists decide to protest anti-racist speakers on campus? Do you trust universities to stand on principle to defend controversial left-wing speakers, or will those speakers face ridiculous security fees (and unlike the Koch-funded groups, be unable to pay them)?
1
Mr. Hanlon, how can you call yourself a progressive yet cite the words of Mark Bray who supports the violence perpetrated by the Antifa movement? As a UC Berkeley student myself, one painful fact that the author of this article fails to point out is that the millions of dollars UC Berkeley has spent on security is necessary solely because left-wing militia groups come to my campus with petrol bombs and rocks, not their so-called "progressive" ideologies.
11
Everyone has a right to speak his opinions, however fatheaded.
Civilization is expensive.
4
Here's a thought - by all means book Mr. Yiannopoulos to talk, and then let him speak to an empty hall. If Milo Yiannopoulos speaks to an empty hall, has he made a sound?
Except that the hall would be full.
So if your question is premised on an impossibility, is it still a question?
1
This has the added benefit, for "conservatives," of robbing the university of funds that would otherwise be spent on the teaching of things they do not like -- thngs like, you know, Science.
5
At least this article mentions Antifa as sharing the responsibility for these costs, but, as is the way of the modern leftists, it continues to blame speakers for violence instead of the actual instigators.
7
Campus speakers cause expensive security in the same way that rape victims cause expensive trials.
7
I don't know where we draw the line with regard to free speech, but I have a suggestion. Academics can speak on campus. A section of a nearby park can be set aside for non-academic speakers. Politicians of all stripes, white supremacists, professional provocateurs, climate change deniers, and creationists can erect their soapboxes in the park. Any violence that erupts will be handled by the local police department.
3
Freedom is not free.
2
It seems a complete waste of time and money to host Yiannopoulos, and neither Berkeley nor UCB has money to spare.
1
Of course, in Hanlon's world "free speech" would only go one way and support one point of view: his. I wonder if he would dare question the "academic value" of a visit to the university a left leaning "liberal" out to "educate" the students with an anti-Trump tirade and screed?
The arrogance of todays academia is breeding a bunch of self entitled automatons that are part of the Bratty Generation.
6
I dislike Milo and don't think his thoughts have much value, BUT you can not blame anyone for security costs other than the people who seek to disrupt.
If you truly think that it is ok to disrupt so long as the disruptors are people you approve of, then you make his point for him.
19
While his motives for a threshold of quality academic speech are meritorious, Dr. Hanlon's yearning for public expenditure efficiency is problematic in the larger perspective. His call for a cost-effectiveness value judgement in observing free speech on campus - at Berkeley, no less - is a slippery slope akin to Ronald Reagan and Ed Meese's demands of public order on campus. Institutions of learning are crucibles, incubators of freedom, the academies the essence of forums for discourse, and campuses have traditionally and wisely been treated, and protected, as open in this culture.
Openness and its reliable appearance are the foundations of freedom. Who will decide who is worthy to be "given" a soapbox? What threshold? Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park is not subject to a pass. Where you see closed university campuses in the world, you see a sign of repression.
Freedom is more than worth the price of overhead and inefficiency. Just look at the societal attempts toward greater "efficiency" and see what is found, and the collateral costs they entailed. For societal efficiency and sanitized order, look to cultic, repressive regimes like North Korea et. al. I despise and disdain Yiannopolous for his message and his methods, but when it comes to civil liberties, I'm a libertarian. That transcends ideology. RIP Mario Savio.
What Stunts Like Milo Yiannopoulos’s ‘Free Speech Week’ Cost - the price of lighting a room where the meetings are held, so maybe $150.00
What costs are associate with protecting people from violent intolerance from far-left groups at UC Berkeley in 2017 - $1,500,000.00 and counting
8
Free speech does not exist at Berkeley.
9
Make Milo pay for the security at his own event.
14
Make BLM pay for the policing costs of its protests and marches.
2
Mr. Yiannopoulos certainly isn't the one breaking windows, swinging two by fours, and burning cars. Perhaps, Mr. Hanlon, you're poorly assigning the cost here.
12
The author may have heard that Charles Murray, Heather MacDonald, and other conservative intellectuals have been targeted and shouted down by left-wing anti-free speech zealots. Yianopouloulos is a provocateur, but the left is claiming the right to prevent speech by those they deem to have "deplorable" ideas.
As for comparing antifa to those who opposed the Nazis, what an insult to the memory of true antifascists.
7
Isn't the point to exhaust university funds to weaken post secondary education for "liberal/elitist" students?
1
Ah! A conservative. Or perhaps I should say, finally! a conservative. That Coulter, Yiannopoulos, Bannon and the whole host of people have been able to commandeer and besmirch the label conservative is shameful. They're reactionaries and provocateurs and they should be properly labeled. Thank you, Aaron Hanlon. You're a conservative (you call yourself) worth listening to (I say).
Send the bill to the groups who want to bring these fake free speechers to the Berkeley campus. If they refuse to pony up, take them to court.
2
Amazing that the writer would blame the speakers rather than the thugs that show up to disrupt the speech.
10
While 1 million is an inordinate sum, the fact is is that the real outrage is that it costs this much to protect a speaker from physical harm. The counter-protesters are who destroy things.The fact that Ben Shapiro a jewish center-right never trump commentator is branded a nazi and must receive extensive protection is a prime example of this, which the author wisely tries to downplay. The fact is, many of the students don't know that hate speech is protected by the constitution, no court anywhere has ever decided "words equal violence" and therefore you can preemptively attack a person for them, and many professors in the humanities are ok with european style speech controls that most americans still recoil from.
6
'... antifa groups form specifically to counter white supremacist and Nazi violence, having done so from the days of Hitler and Mussolini. Antifa groups are a symptom, not a cause, of the threat of white supremacist violence.'
Historically, this is incorrect. For example, the international groups opposed to fascism that gathered in Spain to oppose Franco were controlled and organised mostly by Bolsheviks and their fellow travellers who reported to the Kremlin.
The Bolsheviks and other revolutionary groups in Tasarist Russia, and similar groups throughout Europe, opposed Russian and European imperialism. Their counterparts in India, Africa, the Near East and Far East opposed European colonialism but also fought for power inter-ethnically and inter-religously.
Anarchists in the USA in the late 1890s and early 1900s were opposed to the principles and practises of American capitalism and to the exploitation by American robber-barons of lowly paid American and non-American workers working and living in dangerous and unsanitary conditions.
2
What a joke of a column. The entire blame for the cost lies with Antifa and others on the left. Yiannopoulos and other speakers are doing nothing violent or illegal -- they are merely stating their opinions. The only reason security is needed is that others are willing to commit violence to try to shut down others' speech. The only reason the left is "baited' is that the left won't obey the law and the whole concept of civilization -- that you don't get to commit violence against someone because you don't like him. One and only one side deserves condemnation.
20
Civilization can not survive if only civility remains. Yiannopolis, Colter et al. have nothing new to say and contribute to neither civil conversation or civilization. Charles Murray was happy to profit from race-baiting in order to sell more books so it's hardly surprising young people have heard enough from him. Nothing he claimed about racial differences or allowed his publishers to claim was supported by his own evidence.
2
Threadwinner.
1
To be clear, Alan is the threadwinner.
Clare doesn't have a clue about either the 1A, nor what Mile et al have to say.
1
Antifa gets one paragraph on a story about how much campus violence costs? Yiannopoulos is a caricature who would have shown up and promptly been shouted down and derided at a place like Berkeley and went away with the stink of his poor organizational skills behind him. However, people (primarily hopped-up young men) dressed in black and with faces covered "defend freedom" using brown-shirt methods like beating people with sticks and throwing trash cans. However much Yiannopoulos and his ilk disgust us with racist, xenophobic talk, the anti-fascists will play the same role in present-day US that they played in Nazi Germany - having *no effect* except to disgust common people enough with their violence and anarchist message that they begin to view the execrable alt-right with sympathy.
2
If the violent mobs were aimed at liberal speakers, the NYT would say order must be protected at any cost. Blaming the speakers reminds me of the first integration of the armed forces, where opponents said this would instigate violence against the black soldiers, i.e. blame the victim, just like at Berkeley.
5
The real kick in the teeth is that Mr Yiannopoulos is a past master of mediocrity and loquacious vacuity. He has no qualifications, no experience, no competence, no substance...
Anyone who feels an urgent need to expose themselves to his unremarkable brand of adrenal agitation can listen to his dire shows or purchase one of his tedious screeds.
It's time to stop indulging provocateurs in the name of free speech. Free Speech does not mean 'cost free'. Let this perverse punk Milo Y pay for the security his antics require, IN ADVANCE.
4
The provocateurs only come because these "smart" students are so easily provoked. It's exciting!
Silly little kiddies.
2
Despite this talk of Freedom of Speech and the faux-outrage about how people react to the side-show that is Milo Yiannopolus, people miss the one obvious point:
Freedom of Speech isn't 'free'
When you spit the hate-filled, intellectual dishonest garbage that Milo spews, there will be consequences and backlash. People seem to miss the obvious fact this man is unlikable period, he endorsed pedophilia goodness sake.
No matter how much you try to cover up Milo and his alt-garbage in the intellectual argument of freedom of speech. Decent people will be rightly angry and outraged this man is given a platform, to young impressionable students no less.
1
This isn't far off from my opinion after the first riot that it would be unwise to invite a provocateur like Milo but I'm more than a little uneasy about the tacit endorsement of "antifa" as I if they were merely reacting to "white supremacists". I remember being their age, having barely coherent political views, thinking everyone on the right is evil. It's not surprising that those labels get applied to an ever increasing circle of enemies of the right and good. If it weren't mostly a bunch of idiots looking for a fight the mainstream media cheering then on would be dangerous. It's at the very least feeding political tribalism and a social license for fringe politics
3
You write an entire article decrying the cost of security for conservative speakers, and hardly a word about why that security is needed.
Perhaps the leftist, face mask wearing, intolerant, violent rioters are responsible.
The logical approach would be to lock up the rioters.
But that doesn't fit the narrative. Instead you pretend these poor rioters were triggered and their violence is ok.
7
To the journalism students at cal, investigate the Berkeley Patriots. Who exactly is funding them. To the student(s) who break the story, a+ for your semester grade!!!!!!!
2
Milo Yiannopoulos, Coulter, Bannon...they are all offensive, but hear them out. Decades ago, the Nazis marched in Jewish neighborhoods, and were ignored.They crave this attention as provocateurs, not as individuals with new ideas. Surely the education at Berkley and other institutions is robust enough to listen to some poorly formed arguments without spending all this money.
Blame the thugs who threatened to disrupt the speech, not the speaker. Yiannopoulos is a clown, but he's not responsible for the need for security.
Blaming him is "blaming the victim". Isn't that the worst sin in the NYT lexicon?
7
Talk about blaming the victim. Blame the infantile psychos from Antifa for necessitating this level of security at public lectures, where verbal debate is an option.
5
It shows a seemingly typical attitude among "liberals" to hold speakers responsible for the costs of security while it is violent (pseudo-)"Antifa"groups who initiate the insecurity. To compare these searchers for a cause to raise a tumult (better to be compared with soccer hooligans) with the real anti-Hitler resistance is an insult to these brave men and women who risked having to pay with their life while today´s Antifa-"heroes" dwell in media attention for their make-believe audacity.
4
Milo who?
Oh, you mean that guy who defends pedophilia?
Why does anybody pay attention to him? Why does he get loads of news coverage here at the Times? What has he ever done to warrant so much attention? Is he a brilliant expert at something? Has he written ground breaking books on sociology, or politics, or anything?
He is a nobody and nothing but a manipulator of the media.
I have made it a policy for the last year to ignore him and basically boycott media coverage of him. I'm breaking that today, to restate my reason why, with this comment.
Now I will go back to ignoring him.
Editors, rest assured, any future articles about him for the next year will NOT be clicked on by me.
1
That's odd. Our writer ignored the escape door built into the Berkeley campus leader's office so that if the hired thugs came looking for him, he or she could escape capture.
The political foundations and people funding the violence must never be named or people would lose their jobs even though there ONCE was a time when the NY Times actually looked for information on all sides like this to make public.
But, y'know, progressivism is much cooler even if it never works economically for a country.
2
What a silly tome, full of lies end half truths. Antifa are the fascists, not the speakers.
Berkeley has hiked the security fees in the hopes these guy go away. Had they enforced the law and arrested the anarchists, there would be no problem. They turned a blind eye. Their mayors issued stand down orders to the police. This is why antifa, until recently, gained in strength. Now they are being exposed.
7
If the NYTImes used terms like "small minded bigots" instead of " big-name provocateurs" when speaking of Ann Coulter I might say, "Let em talk".
Let's send Mr. Yiannopoulos to Oral Roberts University, perhaps Brigham Young University, or Texan Christian University, and see what kind of welcome he finds there...
Send the bill to Milo.
2
Milo is an entertainer. His genre is intellectual masquerade and political provocation all with the goal of furthering his $ career as a shock jock. Period. There is simply no educational value there for the students of Berkeley...other than learning that any social arsonist, like Milo (who achieves arson of a sort by lighting his brain farts), can say any baseless thing they want...which the students already know.
Milo's antics are outside the scope of the University's educational mission and there is no reason for UC and California taxpayers to pay for his event and protection. While he should be allowed to speak on Sproul Plaza, the security cost and the cost of the aftermath of his provocation should be borne by him.
So if UC, the City of Berkeley and Alameda County police departments and the Calif Highway Patrol estimate a cost to provide an appropriate level of security, and given the speaker's lack of intellectual credibility and that his appearance does not remotely serve the mission of the UC, then he is responsible for what happens and needs to pay, upfront, the estimated cost of his appearance. Otherwise the continued repeat of events like this could fiscally damage UC, which may partially explain why they target UC.
1
This is a very biased and slanted article. I could never use this as a reliable source. Articles written like this continue to divide us as a nation.
4
I applaud Antifa. They represent a noble tradition. If the Germans had been less tolerant of the Nazis and the Brownshirts, 60,000,000 lives might have been saved. America has become the home of modern fascism, so it will become the home of the resistance to their evil. Trump is deranged and violent, far and away the most dangerous person on Earth, and he has no non-deplorable supporters.
1
Antifa the symptom:
From Malini Ramaiyer, NY Times, Feb 2, 2017"
"Then I saw someone wearing all black walk up to a student wearing a suit and say, 'You look like a Nazi.' The student was confused, but before he could reply, the black-clad person pepper-sprayed him and hit him on the back with a rod.
I ran after the student who was attacked to get his name and more information. He told me that he is a Syrian Muslim. Before I could find out more, he fled, fearing another attack. "
There's Antifa in action.
There were similar groups in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Primarily well- heeled white kids imagining they were fighting some sort of revolution. Smashing window and calling police "pigs" while turning over cars here and there. They purported to be Marxists or socialists but few of them know anything about blue collar folks in this country.
I grew up in a lower middle class neighborhood. At one point I had hoped groups like these might actually make a difference but none of them seemed to live in my neighborhood. Soon many migrated to Ann Arbor which was a much more revolutionary and anarchist non-hostile friendly environment.
We now have kids again kicking up their heels in some sort of imagined struggle against groups that have always existed. A lot of this is old fashioned liberal white guilt. But I need to inform them that my family's (as well as friends' and former neighbors') guilt account was closed long ago in Detroit.
Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa, indeed.
2
Apparently it is up to me to point out the Elephant In The Room: the huge security costs aren't the fault of the speaker. Mr. Yiannopoulos' presence and free speech shouldn't ordinarily require anything more than some bored attendance and a couple of catcalls, maybe.
Instead, the hard Left and the renta-thugs of Antifa are doing their best Brownshirt imitation, destroying property, assaulting people and doing their strident best to keep anyone who they disagree with intimidated.
So, why is there such violence immediately available at Berkeley? What has UC Berkeley done to foster such a climate of violence and intolerance? Could be that the whole "cost of security" issues is their fault - and just another means of suppressing opposing views.
17
Actually, you couldn't have it more wrong and the facts more twisted. Even the author of this essay, Aaron Hanlon, admits that the REAL goal of such people like Milo Yiannopoulous is to provoke a ferocious response on the part of people who disagree with them---and then to claim, "innocently" and with a smirk, that "the left just hates free speech and I've proven it."
Maybe you missed the part in Mr. Hanlon's essay where he writes: "But the escalation of security costs isn’t a response to conservative thought. It is the only way schools can respond to a deliberate right-wing strategy, driven by outside groups, to inflict disruptive and deliberately offensive speakers on campuses, and thus bait the left into outrage."
Nice try. But your sly attempts to impose your spin just won't wash here. They just won't wash.
1
There isn't violence immediately available at "Berkeley". Berkeley-the University-is an open campus in an urban area, accessible to anyone.
The university has not done anything to foster such climate-to the contrary, read Chancellor Carol Christ's letter to the community. And, acknowledge that spending such huge amounts of money to protect free speech is the antithesis of fostering violence and intolerance.
It is not the University's fault--it is the University acknowledging and accepting its responsibility to comply with the First Amendment.
1
Get rid of the Antifa thugs and security costs will go to near zero.
5
I didn't realize Milo had brought the antifa rioters. Bad Milo! Bad!
2
I miss the days when actual civilized debates, discussions took place, and both sides learned more about why the other side believed as they did, and over time one even changed their minds. Much like NPR's Intelligence Squared U.S. show where top thinkers debate today's most important issues
Key word being 'thinkers'.
Now what we hear as 'free speech' is all about being a provocateur, a shock jock, who has NO desire to be thought provoking, but aims to insult, demean and hurt. So I think university campuses should welcome great thinkers from all sides who actually want to have a damn serious, adult debate/discussion. Not a freak show for provocateurs that cost taxpayers millions of dollars in security!
18
Milo Yiannopoulos is a disgraceful dirt bag muckraker like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh etc. Why in the world would this school waste money to host an arrogant loud mouthed trouble maker who is not even an American citizen. I wish people like the above would just shut up and go away. They are all about "self" and raking in the cash by being arrogant and self-righteous hateful blowhards. They addicted to the spotlight and it is time to turn off their spotlights and let them fade into obscurity. On the other side is someone like Al Sharpton, another loathsome loudmouth pathetic muckraker. Why rational intelligent people would listen to and admire such horrible people is beyond me. It's all so pathetic. The more I have learned about Yiannopoulos, the more I despise him. To me he is a truly pathetic, piteous self-loathing young man. He's as ignorant as Donald Trump.
I wish the students that get sucked into this violence would realize that the best way to deflate these people is simply not to show up. Let them speak to empty chairs. You solve the security costs problem and you show just how irrelevant they are. This is a dagger in the heart of any provocateur...that nobody cares what they have to say, and dont care enough to be bothered to attend.
Yiannopoulos is an ass, but the cost of security is the fault of those who would violently silence him.
3
Should public institutions be spending taxpayer money allocated for higher education on speakers who aren’t there for teaching and learning?
NO!
23
Student organizations, who get their budget from student activities assessments, are paying the speakers' fees.
Universities do not get to engage in viewpoint discrimination.
1
The provocations of people like Richard Spencer and Milo Yiannopoulos enrich themselves, promote their causes but do more to convince the many liberal and moderate observers of the poverty and emptiness of conservative thought. If you want to convince a Berkeley student that the right is a swamp of racist, sexist climate deniers not worth listening to, invite Spencer and Yiannopoulos to speak on campus.
Protecting women from rape, and trying and imprisoning rapists, is costly. Therefore let’s deny women the right to dress, and in general behave, in a manner that is apt to provoke them. Same logic.
3
What a farce. Freedom of speech doesn't need to be mindlessly exercised; in the United States, a person can legally all but punch someone in the face. Unfortunately, the solution is for liberals & progressives to stop rising to the bait. When Yiannopoulos came to our campus, some people reserved tickets and then walked out at the beginning of his talk; others had organized an alternative event that included crafts and poetry. Personally, I went to see Moana with my kids that night. I'm ordinarily a protestor, but he seemed too small to bother with.
15
I agree, Sarah - stop rising to the bait - stop feeding the beasts with the attention they crave! Yiannopoulos has no "ideas" worth debating - and he's not there to debate or discuss anything - just to provoke and also insult and target individual students at his events.
Just ignore these creeps. Not much of an "event" if only a handful of his loser supporters show up.
1
The student groups that sponsor these events should be given a fixed budget: speakers fees, venue and security all should come out of that. Free speech is fine, but bringing in nationally known, need I say, notorious speakers for shock value is expensive. Why should the University have to pay?
1
The country is gradually unraveling. Right wing media and uncontrolled big money along with social media, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and a poorly educated populace have created a perfect storm. We appear to be on the brink of a war with North Korea and perhaps Iran, and nobody in Washington seems to have the foggiest idea of how to stop it, or conversely, seem hellbent on making it happen. Nobody, in either party, is talking about the $20 trillion deficit and the fact that we need to increase taxes and cut spending. It's like the Titanic is steaming full steam ahead toward icebergs and the crew on the bridge stepped away to smoke crack. All the Democrats can talk about is how to create new, expensive programs to dole out non-existent money, and even in their unreality, they are vastly superior to the climate denying, destroy the healthcare system, candy store for big business Republicans. Only God can save America now, and I earnestly pray that He finds something redeemable and worth saving in this mess.
1
Make Milo pay for security costs! This is just another PR stunt for his version of a reality show...reminds me of someone else who is in a position he should not be in, wasting my tax dollars for his extravagant retinue...
4
Looks like Milo's flame has gone out. They commit to a week and Milo, who must not be too easy to work with, hasn't been able to match speakers he allegedly had with venues the university was willing to spend $1 mil to protect.
As a small time rabble rouser (to call him provocateur is too kind), he will never elevate himself above punching-bag status on esoteric talk shows. C'mon Milo, do something!
I don't think he could convince a pit bull to eat a pork chop.
2
Let them speak and answer for their views. They are intellectually and morally bankrupt and only when they leave the echo chamber of their channels are they exposed as such.
If their point is to merely incite, rather than provoke thoughtful intercourse, let them provide their own legitimate security. Otherwise, bring it, I a mere snowflake will waste them in an honest debate. Though I doubt that is what they want. I fear not a whisper of what they have to say, they are clowns without an instance of evidence to prove any point they possess.
2
Milo Yiannopoulos cost nothing. It's "Antifa" that cost $1.5 million -- they were the ones showing up and violently attacking people they disagreed with, with bottles, metal bars, and other instruments of extreme violence. When Berkeley, both the town and the university, show the willingness to arrest and prosecute all Antifa assailants, they'll stop showing up, and it will be the last $1.5 million UC Berkeley has to spend.
26
Dr. Hanlon, Don't Supreme Court decisions on First Amendment specifically state that public universities may not use the levying of extraordinary fees on speakers, or sponsoring groups, as a way of preventing the speaker from speaking? Or using financial threats as a means of silencing?
Keep in mind, that back in February when Milo Yiannopoulos was to speak at Berkeley, the groups that caused over $100,000 in property damages, and bodily damage, were left-wing groups. And the Berkeley police arrested almost no one and essentially, stood down on orders from its mayor as requested by Berkeley administration, as I have read.
Specificaly, Which far-right group showed up during that February attempted speech by Mr Yiannopoulos? Perhaps at others, but at that one?
Seems to me that the problem lies not with a provocateur (and drag queen) like Milo Y. but on efforts to unconstitutionally silence him, and people such as yourself who take to the op-ed pages of newspaper to lay blame at their feet.
A note: Ben Shapiro is Jewish and wears a yarmulke, and is the conservative whom you mention Berkeley had to spend $600,000 on security measure so his speaking engagement could proceed safely. And it wasn't just off-campus people who attended it.
4
To be factual, it is Antifa's stunt that cost $800,000.
20
No, it isn't. And if you bothered to read this entire essay by the conservative Mr. Hanlon, you'd see why your point is entirely inaccurate and driven more by ignorance and ideological bias than the pure facts.
Oh, for pete's sake. In prevention of violence from *whom* requires spending $800,000?
1
They should charge tickets....and get pay per view and others to pay for advertising etc to pay for the security....that way the administration can even pay themselves more ...bet they just raise student fees and stay with the status quo!
1
Would have loved to see that $1.5M go, instead, to the scholarship fund.
2
Yiannopoulos is like Trump - sowing hate & division is a selfish means to an end: speaking fees, book sales, fame. It's likely Yiannopoulos doesn't believe anything he says.
There's a deep cynicism in Yiannopoulos & Trump, inflicting damage on this country in pursuit of fame & fortune. Trump's the 1st president we've had who pathologically disrespects & damages the office of POTUS to fill narcissistic ego needs. Trump ran to exploit our system for financial gain, then accidentally won.
Make no mistake - Trump doesn't care about the pain he's causing.
On Feb. 2 Trump's longtime friend Howard Stern said: "Donald just wanted a couple more bucks out of NBC & that's why he's calling for voter fraud investigations. He's (furious) he won. He still wants Hillary Clinton to win. He's so (enraged) he won, he's hoping he can find some voter fraud & hand it over to Hillary.
Trump's lack of preparation for the job, his refusal to learn, his compulsion to hold rallies & tweet insults instead of working, certainly looks like someone trapped in the "dump" White House who foolishly ran for an office he never wanted & hates holding.
We're stuck w/ Trump having no agenda but 'winning' & destroying Obama's legacy. The rest is Trump entertaining himself. When he's finally removed from office, he'll proclaim he's glad to go because he hates the job & despises us.
We're already seeing this bitterness manifest in Trump's daily behavior.
Hope Yiannopoulos burns himself out.
1
Thanks for pointing out the costs of bringing the circus to town. After the dozing stunts, Yiannopoulos should be welcome nowhere.
1
It's very sad that there are those who would use violence to prevent Mr Iannopoulos from speaking. Violence serves no purpose
Milo Iannopoulos was invited by Bill Maher on his show, and consequently was able to prove he is a worthless waste of skin.
1
"It’s easy to claim that denying a speaker — even one like Mr. Yiannopoulos or Richard Spencer — is a kind of epistemological harm that makes students worse off."
Equating Yiannopoulos with Spencer is sheer ignorance, and serves to prove free-speech absolutists argument: who the heck is Hanlon -- or the Also-fa, without whom none of this expense would be necessary -- to decide what the rest of us may hear?
A nice theoretical viewpoint, which is easy for you to espouse because you don't live in California, and therefore don't get stuck with the security bill. If these alt-right blabbermouths come calling at the University of Washington, and your state's taxpayers have to pay a million dollars in extra security costs, I have to wonder if you might change your tune.
2
So to save money we must stifle free speech? Really?
1
I don't know about these speakers...who they are exactly or what they stand for. But apparently they are 'conservative'.
You say that they are 'responsible' for causing all kinds of excessive security costs, but some might argue the opposite...that if some bleeding-heart liberal students didn't get their pants all in a bunch everytime someone disagreed with their PC-ness, that universities wouldn't find themselves in such predicaments, and needing such exhorbitant levels of security.
Free speech is free speech, and I'm so tired of the ultra-PC crowd deeming their own behaviors automatically ok, simply because they believe their motives to be altruistic and for the 'common man', and that anyone who disagrees with them is 'not ok'.
I'm filled with glee that Milo's "free speech" weekend wasn't. He is a fame-seeking provocateur and narcissist and university money should not be spent on his protection. Let him find another venue and pay for his own security.
1
While the idea of free speech is fine, we also know the hate speech that these conservatives spout leads directly to the way minorities and gays are bullied, injured, and killed.
What do these commentator have to say that we haven't heard them say before? I support the Berkeley students that do everything to drown out hate.
9
The way to combat ideas is with other, smarter ideas, not violence!
1
One question not raised sufficiently by this column - why is it necessary to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on security for these speakers? If those who oppose the content of their speech would consider it sufficient to hold their own rallies and express their disagreement in the form of speech themselves, the only costs would be those involved with picking up the trash left behind.
It is only when protesters burn cars, run cars into people, throw trash cans through windows, etc. that heavy and costly security is necessary. It is not the speakers who cause the universities to incur these costs, but those who are afraid that the speakers may change somebody's mind.
2
According to a report on state audit findings earlier this year, University of California administration is paying "excessive salaries and mishandling funds" and one of the examples cited below:
The Office of the President also spent more than $2 million for its staff’s business meetings and entertainment expenses over the past five years—a benefit that the State does not offer to its employees except in limited circumstances.
The U.C. Berkeley administration now has ample grounds to refuse further requests from the "Berkeley Patriots" for further use of campus facilities for outside speakers. This student group, apparently a front for Milo Yiannopilos, utterly wasted public resources in what amounts to a head fake. No one has First Amendment rights to conduct a hoax, a parody of free speech that never really occurs. Unfortunately, respect for the First Amendment means such a group has to demonstrate its true nature before it can be disregarded.
Unlike Professor Hanlon, I do not think that real speech can constitutionally be prohibited on the basis of content, no matter how unserious or trivial its potential contribution to academic or political discourse. The challenge for Berkeley and other public universities is how to show that student groups ostensibly sponsoring outside speakers are not seriously exercising the right to free speech. The administration must be allowed to decline requests from such groups. Otherwise, the Berkeley Patriots will reappear next week under a different name with different student membership, in whole or in part, and the campus will be obligated to pour millions more scarce dollars down the security drain to facilitate these unserious provocateurs.
1
I hate to see this kind of warped logic. The security cost is high because of the people who will protest violently - blaming the speakers is just inaccurate.
Giving in to violence, or threats of violence, is just plain wrong. It's not ok just because you (and I) do not like what these particular people want to say.
What is sad is that these students feel the need to protest violently rather than focus of demonstrating the logical flaws in these stupid ideas, as would befit a university.
2
First. Do you also refer to BLM protests as free speech "stunts?" If not than stop the denigrating Milo's speech in such a way.
Second. The cost of this free speech is not due to Milo but due to Antifa. So take up your complaints with them and the politicians that condone or don't speak out against them. They should be declared a "gang" and heavily punished and penalized for their actions. If not than don't complain on the "tax" they are imposing on the preservation of free speech.
2
Many people are talking about the 'provocative' nature of speakers they disagree with, and wishing they would just be sent away. Of course, hard-left speakers who are far more extreme would be characterized as merely brave truth-speakers and in any case they wouldn't provoke violence responses from the college- choir they're preaching to...
Schools like Berkeley have quite efficiently seen to it that their staffs & their student bodies are overwhelmingly of one political mind.
Given that level of political inbreeding, and the extreme intolerance for dissenting views that goes along with it, expressing any views to the right of Bill Clinton would now pass for 'screaming fire in a crowded theater'.
1
Wow. As a UC Berkeley Ph.D., I am appalled at this column. If this had been a Left Wing speaker, this would be called "blame the victim." This is just more proof of how out of touch academia is with any sense of fairness or proportionality, or the most basic American value: Free Speech. Fortunately, we still (barely) live in a free country where you can go watch Milo on YouTube, or buy his (self-published book... because his publisher illegally broke his contract)... and you'll find that he's crazy, provocative, and brilliant and NON VIOLENT. I do not agree with him (!), but as an American, I believe free speech is valuable and it is worth spending money on. And, by the way, there is a tremendous cost to Berkeley of people like me who will not donate to the University until and unless it gets the backbone to support free speech - it is, after all, the distasteful, obnoxious speech that needs protection. I believe that was the lesson of the 1960s Free Speech movement, after all.
2
Yes, this is a huge waste of money that the University of California should not be forced to cover. These provocateurs come to campus to breathe life into the dying embers of their fading reputations. Their lifeblood is publicity--without it they are nothing. They add nothing to campus life other than celebrity and the occasional whiff of tear gas. Students have enough to worry about without this contrived silliness. Good riddance.
1
Maybe people are finally realizing - all this nonsense isn't about free speech. The university has bent over backwards to let these provocateurs speak, probably because they're terrified of a lawsuit. They don't really want to speak. They don't just want to talk. They're going to Berkeley to provoke, to divide and inflame so that they can scurry away posturing as free speech martyrs.
That's why they don't actually bother to organize the logistics of these events, or to file paperwork with the university. None of this is being done in good faith.
And when you consider the repellent agenda of Bannon et al., not just these stunts in isolation, the tactics start making more sense. They know they can't simply say what they believe at a public forum like everyone else does, because decent people everywhere find their views repellent. Their tactics have to be sneaky and indirect.
But while people slowly figure it out, the narrative has advanced throughout the entire media, to the point where many liberals believe that left-wing campuses have an issue with free speech. The side with a free speech problem is still the side that melts down at the sight of peacefully protesting athletes - the same side that will inevitably try to use these manufactured incidents to defund campuses and thereby silence their forums entirely.
At UC Berkeley, many more typical speakers have been cancelled to make room for Milo and his spectacle. What about their free speech? It was never about that.
1
Let's identify the heart of the problem: it is the virulent political correctness espoused by my left wing academic colleagues. From their righteousness springs the belief that words are dangerous and must be suppressed -- violently if necessary. And so we have armored police to protect the forum, and security bills to match.
17
"political correctness?" FYI, no one in history was as proudly and explicitly "politically incorrect" as Hitler and Mussolini. You might want to be careful about who you're taking up sides with.
1
It's interesting that the "conservative" Mr. Yiannopoulos wants the government or a public institution to pay for his security costs.
I thought conservatives were against government handouts.
Oh that's right. Conservatives are only against government handouts to other people.
8
Defending the First Amendment is not a "government handout."
2
Free speech is a privilege; where does free speech end and the responsibility that goes with it begin.
Milo is a has-been; nobody in his birth country even care what he has to say. That our students are scrambling to hear his nonsense says more about us than him.
1
I believe the writer's point (with which I agree) is that students are, in fact, not scrambling to hear the likes of Mr. Yiannopoulos; and that these events are essentially exercises in right-wing "branding", as well as deliberate efforts to disrupt educational activities and siphon off public funds under cover of "free speech" arguments.
Mr Yiannopoulos, Ms Coulter, Mr Bannon, Alex Jones, et al are simply political Kardashians...masters of packaging air, and selling it to the ignorant...
1
Factually false. Free speech is a right. Read the 1st amendment. Go ahead, seriously, read it.
2
Always good to listen to both sides of any issue, that is what the educated do
How do know what an entire country, the UK, thinks of Milo?
This is hilarious. The students get into a huge debt from overpriced--a scholastic version of the tech bubble--universities, and the professional provocateur parasites swoop in to take some fees for themselves; police become on the de facto payroll of the school--and who pays? The students and their parents--absolutely hilarious.
1
He's great and needs to be heard, especially on this campus, doesn't matter how much it costs..let them pay up!
12
How about the sponsoring groups pay the security costs instead.
1
A school administrator should simply say that Milo is not welcome because his message doesn't meet the required standard of intellectual honesty. Using social media as a weapon is another disqualifier.
1
Right.... but at a school like Berkeley, they'd then also have to fire most of the teaching staff.
Oh, wait---outrageous double standards and blatant hypocrisy aren't a problem for them. So maybe your idea would work.
Universities should be the one place where students are exposed to views from all points of the political spectrum, views that offend and provoke and challenge your own opinions.
Instead they've become 'safe spaces' where opinions come with 'trigger warnings' and the powerful and intolerant Thought Police run roughshod over the free exchange of ideas that universities once promoted.
One slip of the tongue and any one of us might be fired or boycotted or on the receiving end of a viscous social media lynching.
5
Excellent points Mr. Hanlon. I have trouble even calling Yiannopoulos a conservative. His platform, if it could be said to be anything at all, is all about selling books and talk show spots. It is about taking advantage of people's fears for financial advantage. Coulter, Yiannopoulos, Bannon, Jones, etc. etc. seem to consider defamation of critics and the spread of outright lies to be "free speech," and it is, but it certainly has nothing to do with driving out intellectual discussion. It has no place at Academic institutions.
Berkeley should just say, fine, have your event here, but here are our security requirements, and you'll have to pay for them, or we can't protect you. I'm pretty sure the cockroaches would scuttle away, and Berkeley could get back to having real academics like Ms. Tsing lecturing. What a shame these heinous people are not only spreading hate and fear, but also killing real academic endeavors in the process.
5
Berkeley caused their own problems by allowing, together with serious STEM topics, other courses that have become indoctrination centres to intolerant leftist ideologies. Berkeley should close gender studies and other impacted areas (various sociologies, afro-american studies, etc: just read the affiliations of those professors who sign petitions against free speech). Looks tough, but this measure would be a good service to students who come to learn something real and useful rather than to play politics and assault non-PC speakers.
3
Security isn't required because obnoxious speakers might be shouted down. Security is required because left wing students want to commit violence against any speakers they disagree with.
Let me emphasize this point: left wing students want to commit acts of violence against anyone who says anything they disagree with.
7
This was never about free speech - period.
3
This stuff is a little beyond me. The university is a public institution, but does not the institution have the responsibility to determine what is best for the institution including its academic staff, non-academic workers, and students? Why couldn't this institution just say NO in the interests of public safety? If the "Berkeley Patriot, the student group hosting his event" failed to file the paperwork, why didn't the university just call it off? Instead its president decided to chip in more cash? Sounds like a dumb decision to me.
Harvard got itself into a similar pickle. S Spicer and C Manning have about the same intellectual credentials as Yiannopoulos. I thought universities were supposed to be about higher learning, not dumbing down.
1
Take a random look at some of the fascinating, inclusive PC courses on offer at places like Berkeley---that should quickly cure you of any delusions about "universities being places of higher learning, not dumbing down".
I watched Katie Hopkins (also protested) visit to Cambridge Union, on YouTube. If you took away the trolling, grinning jabs and insults, and bog standard conservative ideology (with a couple good arguments), you're left with a woman strutting across the stage who loves the fight. She and Milo and Coulter, et al, are cheaply cynical and it is pathetic that anyone who wishes to be regarded as a serious thinker doesn't call them out. Low-value speakers is right. Performance art for low-intelligence audiences.
1
Allow me to tie in this issue with the on-going angst over how to adjudicate on-campus sexual assault allegations as well as ever-rising tuition.
Put me in charge of a college:
Focus on education and get out of the expensive business of providing 24/7 babysitting for legal adults. Close the dorms, shut down the frats and all student clubs, especially political ones. Forget touchy-feely “campus life”.
Message to students: Attend your classes, then leave. You personal life and your politics are your own business, just keep them off campus. And if you are the victim of a crime, call 911.
1
These grotesques all swear by capitalist markets and free trade, so let them prove their worth. Allow any of them to speak, but after awarding a standard grant to student groups for sponsoring their speakers, require ticket sales to cover costs, including security. For higher value, more expensive speakers, have a diverse academic committee award grants based upon merit. Life is tough.
This is 2017. Free media is everywhere. To deny these speakers space and protection is not to deny them the ability to speak, or their audience an opportunity to hear them. If their fans want the opportunity to sit close up in a theatre, shake hands and get autographs, then see if they can rustle up 1000 people willing to spend $600 a ticket to hear Ben Shapiro drone on about oppressed conservatives. Such a luxury.
2
The anfifa movement was created from the ideology of UC Berkely leftwing teaching. For 40 years, they have been promoting revisionist history, false concept like "white privilege" and encouraging violence against someone as a form of redemptive justice. No, Berkely and the media are fully accountable for the attacks on conservatives. If they go bankrupt, it is their own darn fault.
1
This is a deliberate strategy to bankrupt universities known for liberal thought. Yiannopoulos, Coulter, et al are not academics, but rather charlatans who, in the end, will be the saboteurs of the conservative movement.
3
"Low-value" conservative agitators have been speaking at liberal campuses for decades with few problems and nothing like the hysteria and violence that meets them today. What's changed? Progressives have enthusiastically self-identified as intolerant of anything contrary to their worldview. Geez, the Democrats, my party, need to face up to this inconvenient fact. Years ago my own east-coast university, progressive enough to ban Greek Life and Christmas decorations, routinely hosted firebrand conservatives, and while protests were often organized or spontaneous, they were peaceful and not designed to shut down expression. This piece cavalierly dismisses the damage done by Antifa and lays the blame on the low-value conservatives who are deliberately provoking a violent response. Of course they are. But now we can't control ourselves and it's all the conservatives' fault? Not buying it.
2
I am sure that Schlock Jocks like MY and AC (even spelling their names out legitimizes them and fulfills their strategy) are delighted when their talks are cancelled - especially at a huge cost for institutions and their 'elite' academics. It feeds their narcissism, and increases their market value. For the sake of conservatism as a legitimate scholarly viewpoint, it is imperative for more moderate right wing intellectuals to speak up against the tactics of these flamethrowers. Academic institutions will also be better served by inviting such moderates to their campuses.
1
The biggest lie in the world is, "Look what you made me do."
In this instance, that lie is being told by the left, most visibly by followers of "antifa,"
The cost of the security is because of the violent behavior of protesters, not that of the speakers, no matter what they may have to say. Mr. Hanlon seems to have lost focus on that key and salient fact.
Personally, I find right-wing provocateurs distasteful, wrong-headed in much of what they say, and wrapped up in the thrill of stirring the pot. On balance, they are a bad influence on the body politic. When they carry guns and intimidate others with them, they become criminal themselves.
However, responsibility for one's own behavior starts and ends with the individual. Nobody forced the protestors at Berkeley or anywhere else to move beyond counter-speech - which is the essence of a free and democratic society - to destroying property and beating people up. That behavior is their responsibility, and theirs alone. It is not the responsibility of the university to regulate their behavior. For that we have the laws concerning vandalism and assault, and duly trained and authorized police.
When protestors of any political stripe violate those laws, the only appropriate response is to fine them or to send them to jail for a proportionate period of time, each as defined by the law, after the application of due process to establish the facts of what they have done beyond reasonable doubt.
With freedom comes accountability!
32
Bravo!! You've written a thoughtful, balanced and articulate opinion. I applaud your objectivity and sympathize with your loneliness in this crowd.
I agree with all of your points, but you missed the point of the article. Given that a speaker like Milo is going to incur a million dollars in security costs for whatever reasons - no matter who is "at fault" or "to blame" - the university has a right to deny him a platform, especially if it deems the talk to have relatively low academic value. The talk is eating up a huge amount of much needed and scarce public resources for higher education. Those funds could be used for scholarships or research. He is an outside speaker and the university owes him nothing. If, on the other hand, a faculty member were being threatened by students for assigning Milo's work in a class, that would be a different situation.
2
The paper of record for the United States should always and absolutely advocate for free speach. It's never too expensive. If the rights of these speakers had been respected from the begining we would be happily ignoring them by now. If their ideas take hold offer a better counter argument. Why is this a debate?
2
Why is it costing these universities anywhere near this. College events should only be open to college students if the college is paying the bill. Any student that commits any violence needs to be immediately expelled with no appeal rights. Start practicing this and the cost for these events will plummet.
1
I doubt it was intentional, if it was, your command of the language is laudatory. "Free speech should 'trump' all else" is particularly ironic phrasing....especially the day after the NFL demonstrations.
and yet communities spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in security costs when politician visit for local fundraising ...
1
Universities and colleges, as institutions of learning have an obligation to be more creative and farsighted when dealing with these provocations - which will always be the Achilles Heel of free speech and liberal education.
I wish there were a way to limit visiting speakers to campuses to those with serious intentions and serious public policy and cultural criticism credentials - along with proven track record in intellectual honesty. But that is unworkable, and new ideas, by definition, often originate on the fringes, not the mainstream.
The answer must be found in more education and more organizing to promote civil discourse and to moderate disruptions. Free speech has always been a radical idea, but more passion should be directed at protecting the process (rather than glorifying or demonizing any particular content) of free expression.
Efforts must also be made to support counter events including those where opposing viewpoints are allowed to be rationally contrasted. Affirmation and laurels should be awarded to those who are civilized and intellectually honest while wielding their rhetorical gladiator skills.
3
Ironically, it is the Antifa who keep two bit hustler like Yiannopoulos's fame glowing
10
The blame seems to be going to the conservatives only. What about the Black-Shirted AntiFa sweeping in there? If you let them set the agenda, whatever the cost, then you are lost. Normally the Berkeley Police should do something here, and not charge the university for it, since it is their responsibility to protect free speech and ensure no violence occurs.
I don't know either about the deficit, this is an artificial excuse that doesn't make sense in the context of an economic boom in California unmatched in recent history (check the housing prices if you doubt that).
9
Antifa thugs have good intentions so its OK for them to smash windows, burn cars and assault people.
1
Police costs were incurred to address crimes committed by Antifa in response to a proposed speech by Yiannopoulos. These costs were a result of the actions of Antifa, not Yiannopoulos. Any other interpretation is the equivalent of blaming the victim (Yiannopoulos) for the crime. Any other interpretation allows criminals to control who gets to speak freely and who gets silenced.
13
This sort of thing has been going on since the late 60s, when bullying 'progressive' students with a mob mentality forcibly took over college campuses...
...while feckless teachers and administrators chuckled and applauded, basically giving up the reins of authority & responsibility that had traditionally been the charge of the grown-ups.
1
Berkeley may have little choice about allowing these provocateurs on campus, but I don't see why it should have to pay for their security. If Berkeley Patriot wants to invite speakers whom it knows will require fantastically expensive security, it ought to pony up the money. Nor do I see why the campus should allow any speaker to publicly shame students or faculty or anybody for that matter, especially when the shaming involves the display of their images and contact information. That's crying fire in a crowded theater as far as I'm concerned, and any speaker who engages in it ought to be barred outright.
31
So it will be forbidden to display the images of...Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King...both of them needing (and not receiving) protection from violence?
Schools like Berkeley have quite efficiently seen to it that their staffs & their student bodies are overwhelmingly of one political mind.
Given that level of political inbreeding, and the extreme intolerance for dissenting views that goes along with it, expressing any views to the right of Bill Clinton would now pass for 'screaming fire in a crowded theater'.
The student groups that are sponsoring these speakers should pay for the costs of these speaking events.
As the former chairman of the UC Berkeley student organization, SUPERB, Student Union Program, Entertainment and Recreational Board, the student fee supported group that sponsored speakers on the Berkeley campus during my tenure as a student in the early 1970s, we had a budget that supported the costs of whatever speakers we brought on campus. That budget was worked out with all the student groups that applied for student support, including far right John Bircher groups and far left Marxist/Leninist political groups.
It wasn't some paternalistic system supported by the University or the California taxpayer. We, as students, worked it out among ourselves from a fixed amount money.
As the San Francisco Chronicle said yesterday, this was a $600K photo op for Yiannopoulos’s media addiction. How is it OK that the California taxpayer has to support an addict like Yiannopoulos, or any of his other like minded media addicts, left and right, under the ruse of "free speech"?
52
"Janet Napolitano, the president of University of California, even offered to chip in at least $300,000 to help with security."
It is mind-boggling how much these university administrators make.
Seriously, what do they do? They're not involved in actual teaching or research. And I know they don't like to be asked that question.
I get that managing a large organization like the University of California is a full-time job. But I don't believe it's that hard. It's mostly a lot of make-work, resulting from the existence of a large bureaucracy itself.
The more "administrators" you have, the more you need.
4
Although the article is ambiguous about whether the source if funding is from personal or university funding I think that it would be reasonable to infer that it is university funding. And I do agree that compared to universities from 40 years ago that the number of administrators has grown seemingly out of proportion and that the cost of a college education has grown faster than inflation (one would suspect that the greater demand for a college education also plays a role in the higher cost of education). But I do not agree with your assessment that the jobs of these administrators is an easy one. In particular Ms. Reno is in charge of a state regulated school system of more than 200,000 students, 200,000 faculty, and a budget of $24 billion. There is no way that this is an easy job. A job that not just anyone could do well in. A job that would pay very well in the private sector. And in particular I would not categorize Ms. Reno as an administrator; although I'm sure her job has that function, but she really is the leader of the university. And not the highest paid either. That would be the UCLA football coach.
4
Get serious with your comment bashing. What does a coach of a university football team now garner? What are the income levels of a CEO for many of the corporations now fetching? To be outraged at the income of a top field university is not such their salary but in the value of the academics provided to top students at said universities.
1
You misunderstood. She was offering to chip in from her central administration budget, not her personal funds.
It is mind-boggling how much the administrators of private universities make (over $2 million per year for the chancellor of Washington University, including his special retirement honeypot), but not those of public universities.
1
If anyone, not specifically hired by a university to speak, wishes to speak, he/she should be hire a hall, be responsible for the security, if needed, and not quibble about the inability to garner a street corner in a school in order to spout his/her beliefs.
Universities are for learning the curriculum the said school teaches in order to obtain a degree, not for providing an arena for any Tom, Dick, or Harry who comes along.
Yes, free speech is a right -- but it is not the right to disrupt. People who wish to exercise their constitutional rights should realize that they may say anything they wish, but that does not give them the right to invade an institution and take over its teaching agenda. Especially when the costs covering such an event are foisted upon the place where such a disruption occurs.
16
These speakers are all invited by university-recognized student groups. They are not walking in off the street, uninvited.
Giving student groups the right to invite speakers is part of providing education. Some of the speakers have important things to say and, yes, some of them are losers. But that is inevitable when enthusiastic young students issue the invitations. It's part of education.
1
Free speech is a right, period. A "right to disrupt" is part and parcel of it . That is the essence of the first amendment. What it does not protect is the right to violent physical response to speech. If you are "triggered" into a physical disruption by a disagreeable speaker you should check your understanding of your rights.
20
" A "right to disrupt" is part and parcel of it ."
Wrong. There is no such thing as a right to a heckler's veto.
Mr. Yiannopoulos is not an educator and does not need to be on campus. Campus speech is for research. Cal is already struggling with funding, especially for athletics. Ironically, a lot of right wingers enjoy sports, and especially football, but Cal suffers from a budget issue for its athletics. I don't know where the money for security comes from in the Cal budget, but it is likely that the money can be used for other things.
9
American universities have established a culture of victimhood amongst its privileged, and a generation of snowflakes which stands in stark contrast to previous generations who fought and sacrificed for something greater than themselves. Now they are given yet another platform to whine and expect support to continue to provide superfluous courses and a product that increasingly fails to prepare its graduates for the real world. Unless crippling debt counts.
2
The security is only necessary bc some are determined to use the event as a excuse for violence. Using the cost of security as a reason to shut down the event is just a version of the heckler's veto.
9
Excellent column, Mr. Hanlon, clear, fair, and honest. Thank you.
10
First, if the conservatives cripple the University of California at Berkeley they will be thinking they've done a great thing. Second, it would be silly of them to stage these events and have no confrontation; this is what they are here for. As they have very deep pockets, it would be a tiny investment to hire a few people on the ground to make sure that these confrontations occur. But, as this would be private shadow money, I doubt we'll ever hear of this (unlike the public FBI money that was spent 50 years ago).
6
The First Amendment guarantees that people won't be arrested and prosecuted for expressing dissenting or unpopular views.
But it does not guarantee platforms for every point of view or group or speaker. Mr. Yiannopoulos and Mr. Spencer are free to spew their toxic, deliberately offensive speech, whether from a street corner or YouTube or their own media outlets.
But why should universities or mainstream media be compelled to give a platform to these and similar extremists, hate speech perpetrators, and those inciting violence?
Mr. Spencer, Mr. Yiannopoulos and their ilk aren't seeking to engage in dialogue or debate or offer any reasoned arguments. They only seek to offend, provoke, incite violence - and disrupt and destroy.
Far-right militia groups are NOT engaging in "free speech" - they're inciting and engaging in violence.
It's time universities stop being bullied by the false "first amendment" claims of these extremist groups - and start refusing them access to their campuses.
I would think that conservative intellectuals would be most opposed to showboating radicals such as Yiannopoulos, who are poisoning our universities' traditions of debate and exchange of diverse ideas.
As for those students protesting speakers such as Yiannopoulos and Spencer: don't give them the reaction they seek - they see that as a win. Turn your backs on them, or walk out - in complete silence - or better yet, ignore them altogether.
55
It's embarrassing to chamor for banning the speaker instead of countering and effectively deconstructing their position in an open dialogue. And again, the first amendment says nothing about hate speech. In fact, if hate speech were banned, quite a few opponents of mr yiannopoulos & co would be facing the same ban you are dreaming of.
8
Because recognized student groups have chosen to invite them. Bad judgement, perhaps, but their right. Young people are entitled to mistakes in judgement.
1
Again, people such as Yiannopoulos are not seeking dialogue - they're seeking and inciting disruption and violence.
I also did not call for a "ban" on hate speech. I stated that universities and other entities have no obligation to host speakers who clearly seek only to offend, disrupt, and incite violence. Big difference.
Mr. Yiannopoulos and his ilk are still free to spew their venom through other means, e.g., hiring a hall, holding a rally, via their own media, etc. - at their own expense.
And FYI, inciting violence is a crime - and not protected under the First Amendment.
2
Perhaps one solution to the cost of security would be to sell tickets to the event and charge a steep fee.
2
Well, clearly, the issue at its thorniest is to decide who really represents a point of view that deserves serious academic consideration, and therefore a podium in a serious academic institution. Is a certain fanatic glee in "shoving it to liberals" really enough? If so, then Ms Coulter and Mr Yiannopoulos, who to my mind have nothing else to offer, deserve that podium; if not, then they don't, and I for one believe that they don't. Something like Hyde Park Corner is more to the point; a neutral public space set aside so that anyone who wants to rant about anything whatever, is free to do so. That such ranting will not be taken seriously by any but a handful is taken for granted, as it should be, and as the rantings of Yiannopoulos and Coulter would be, as they should be.
65
It really isn't that thorny.
Universities may not engage in viewpoint discrimination. If a campus organization wishes to invite a speaker, then the University may not treat that speaker any differently than other speakers.
No matter what you may think about them.
1
So, Jeff, you're saying there is just no limit to how much money a college should spend on security? Or are you saying that injuries and property damage are just the cost of free speech?
There are lots of civil conservative speakers. Why invite Coulter instead of George Will?
Ted, the 1A is clear: the hecklers' veto shall not stand.
Moreover, who is to decide which speakers are acceptable?
Berkeley's expense is due to its incompetence.
1
If everyone were open to peacefully hearing ideas they disagree with or find offensive you wouldn't need to spend a single penny oh security.
It's not the speakers that are costing the university. It's intellectual intolerance
18
Let me see if I've got this straight: I can speak in a public space, unless there exists a critical mass of people who are unreasonable enough to respond to my speech with physical, criminal violence. In that case, I should be legally forbidden from speaking in a public space -- because otherwise there would be violence! (Unless we spent money.)
Classic victim-blaming logic. And Mr. Hanlon: some things are worth more than money.
20
And what is your solution to this difficult problem? If I were to give or host a speech where I had a reasonable belief that there might be a security concern I would work to mitigate that risk. In some cases it would be reasonable to ask others to help share the burden of that mitigation. There is no evidence that there has been a reasonable effort (admittedly a squishy term but it is used in the law) by some of these speakers to mitigate the security risks of their talks. It almost seems the opposite for some of these speakers. So if somebody wants to be inflammatory, which is an essential part of free speach, then that person should accept the consequences of their actions as well. Causing a foreseeable riot without taking risk mitigation actions is essentially like yelling fire in a crowded theater.
By failing to crack down on student violence--when it's directed against conservative speaker-- the universities have allowed violence to gain acceptance as the de facto natural result of expressing politically incorrect views.
Expressing any views to the right of Bill Clinton would now pass for 'screaming fire in a crowded theater'.
2
The problem with demonstrating, showing support, angry protests, is that all of them seem to allow huge numbers of people to go roaming almost anywhere, shutting down streets, highways, business districts, malls, etc. In Minneapolis, they found out that when this happened it was preventing emergency vehicles like ambulances, EMT, police from doing their work. We no longer have the police, and people don't like to see police arrest, pepper spray, etc. people but neither do people like to see their neighborhoods destroyed, burned down, robbed, cars overturned. It has gotten out of hand, and the human animal has no conscience anymore. It would be better if everyone that felt strongly about a particular issue would engage those who think differently, get to know their neighbors, work in our schools, and go to public meetings. Do we want to have police, and the national guard, spend all of their time shutting down protests, instead of their actual jobs? I don't think so, as there are enough abductions, assaults, auto thefts, gang related activities, heroin overdoses, rapes, robberies, murders, shootings, vandalism besides floods, hurricanes, tornadoes that need to be attended to by these two groups of public servants.
1
Before the Internet it would be a treat to see a famous
author/scientist/politician and hear them speak and take a few
questions after their talk.
It seems that the solution is for the Controversial Speakers to use
the internet for a live discussion.
Much more convenient for all involved.
As for the Protestors - do damage to the University or harm the police
- 120 days in County and pay the cost for what you destroyed.
1
One wonders whether Yiannopoulis's true intention isn't to bankrupt UC Berkeley. He knows the costs of his visit, then left after 15 minutes having said nothing. He vows to return - to ever higher costs.
25
UC is bankrupting itself through flagrant administrative salaries and perks, and you can check out the state audits for details.
Nutty conservative pundit single-handedly scuttles and bankrupts the country's liberal educational system. A headline for the ages.
The fight to keep speech free is never a "stunt".
8
Direct your financial concerns to the protestors, not Milo, whose ideas would easily wither in the glare of daylight.
These ideas are really not as dangerous as you make them out to be. In fact, they need to be said. Heaven forbid that debate unsettle the prevailing dogma of identity.
Two silly factions which deserve to negate each other forever.
7
There is a very easy solution.
The universty covers a maximum X dollars for speakers. If the cost comesunder this X value all well and good. If the cost goes over that value, the organization holding the event picks up the cost.
And for speakers that are likely to cause property damage or major security issues, the organization organizing the event must rent a venue off campus.
3
Violent speech is not free speech.
8
Allow me to say why Mr. Hanlon's argument is not persuasive: I can read a newspaper.
And, I have been reading newspapers for four decades, and I know who has been shutting down free speech on American campuses. And it has not been Milo Yiannopoulos or any of his conservative friends.
To the political contrary.
6
It's folly to think that this would end with such fringe speakers cited. Once such speakers with admittedly questionable value were silenced, the students would simply focus their energies on mainstream Republicans. This thinking would essentially reward violence in that students would be incentivized to create a security threat with the knowledge that the greater the potential danger and chaos the more likely the the threshold of unacceptable cost would be crossed. Characterizing this as mob rule does not even do the situation justice. While the mob serves as the instrument of terror, far more calculated and cynical forces serve as the mob's puppeteers.
2
For generations, student groups have invited outside speakers to come address them in public fora at universities. Universities are not simply about classes, assignments, grades, and extracurricular activities. They are, perhaps more than anything, about exposing students and other members of the academic community to new and perhaps unfamiliar/uncomfortable ideas. From exposure to such ideas come the abilities to compare, critique, synthesize, and learn.
Consider a variation on the scenario at Berkeley. An extremely controversial member of the University's faculty wishes to give an on-campus public lecture on a radical new book of hers. Should she be held responsible for paying for security for her lecture?
Universities are the last non-virtual remnants of the public square in society today. If we want security in the public square, we need to understand that providing it is a basic cost of education in a democracy.
2
The solution is simple. Any group asking for a speaking event should shoulder the responsibility of security. If cops need to be there, let the school determine the level of risk and assign a cost. Pony up or go elsewhere.
19
The best solution is to for everyone to ignore the provocateurs, who are of course being funded by right wing groups looking to infiltrate universities. Ignoring them will obviate the need for security. The provocateurs will soon tire of being ignored, and move on.
12
Why would "right wing groups" need to infiltrate universities ? Should they not already be an integral part of the university? You are basically admiting that universities are festering nests of leftwing ideology - which gave birth to Antifa and BLM in the first place.
Nah, there are plenty of right wing influences at universities already, such as the Hoover Institution at Stanford. Sure, many universities tend to lean to the left, just like the Chamber of Commerce leans to the right. But right wing groups (e.g. ALEC) backed by Koch Industries and other powerful moneyed interests are trying hard to get their people into student government at the more left-leaning universities. I guess promoting festering nests of right wing ideology is better, because it's your ideology, right? Finally, Antifa is a reaction to the reactionaries. If the right wing provocateurs went home, Antifa would cease to exist. If the instances of white cops killing blacks for no reason stopped, BLM would have no reason to exist either.
I am a graduate of UC Berkeley and believe strongly in free speech. But hosting conservative provocateurs is not free speech. It is expensive and detracts from the learning environment. We must consider the true cost of having these speakers on campus and remember that the university's ultimate responsibility is to making sure students are in a safe and productive learning environment.
8
On the other hand, hosting radical liberal provocateurs serves to reaffirm the university's students & administrations of their own utter righteousness---and that's certainly money well-spent, right?
1
As the parent of an Out of State Public University student I am appalled that any of the tuition paid should be used to fund security for a student sponsored event. The sponsor should raise funds to cover the security. The university should give them a bill and if they don't pay it in full they should lose the right to have more events requiring security until they do.
30
The most relevant question is: why is security required for an event where someone is simply speaking behind a podium?
24
"Should public institutions be spending taxpayer money allocated for higher education on speakers who aren’t there for teaching and learning?"
Well, no, it doesn't work that way at Berkeley, or at most public universities, which get an ever-shrinking fraction of their budgets from taxpayers. The students are paying for this, through hikes in their student fees, not the public at large. So when outsiders say "society" or "we" need to pay whatever it takes to guarantee free speech, maybe they'd like to pay for it themselves. Better yet, Berkeley should have the groups doing the inviting cover the costs.
100
What you are suggesting simply incentivizes those who don't like the speech to be as disruptive as possible, thereby increasing costs to the inviting group. You are endorsing a heckler's veto to free speech.
2
HOW does it muzzle free speech? Most (faculty) speakers giving talks on campuses do not get speakers fees, or if they do they are quite modest, and most do not result in violent protest. Speakers do not need huge speakers fees to talk if what they are interested in is open debate. There are some times when security is required -- when a President or Senator gets invited, for example -- but it's unclear what the costs are for these outside speakers. It cannot only be "security." Students should protest their dollars going to fund speakers who seem to take up a disproportionate share of the student budget.
1
Meanwhile, executive and perks have skyrocketed. UC system was audited for its murky practices earlier this year, although administrators added huge costs to public universities across the board. These ongoing wasteful expenses are constant and divert significant funds from those for teaching students. That's the elephant in the room. Having five conservative speakers a year is not that much by comparison, and the cost-conscious now have all the reason make their campus open to diverse views.
Years ago I had a teacher who had us identify an issue that we were fervently passionate about. Then she made us write a paper arguing against our beliefs. The point was to help us see that there's many sides to every issue but if we're willing to listen to the other side we might find common ground or even change our minds entirely.
These public schools would do their students a great service if they started inviting speakers who share opposing views to speak about their views. Then they should give the students an opportunity to ask questions or perhaps even debate the views expressed. A speaker who refuses such an invitation would then be revealed as the agitators they are. But those who do accept the invitation to speak may teach students something or learn why students have different beliefs.
Right now we are talking past each other in our country. Neither side is willing to compromise or concede that the other side might have legitimate concerns about the issues that face us. Our public schools could change that by giving us opportunities to start talking to and not at each other again.
44
I think that is the point of the story. There is a big difference between a conservative intellectual and a conservative provocateur. Someone like Mr. Yiannopoulos doesn't bring anything to the table intellectually, there is no evidence based case being made, there is no debate. There is just deliberate offense.
We certainly do not invite people into our homes, our churches, our offices, (and, yes, our schools), and ask them to insult our children. 'Free Speech' means you have the right to say what you want, but that has never meant that what you say is free from consequences. Having identified himself as little more than lying firebrand, devoid of anything constructive ... well, that is not behavior that anyone should be rewarding. If he were a student and turned in his rants as papers, he would be flunked out of Berkley (or any other higher institution). That is not a sign of something wrong, it is a sign of something being done right.
1
Right---those nasty conservative speakers are there only to provoke violence from students who disagree with them---because, when you hear a political view that differs from your own, you simply have no choice but to physically attack the speaker or their aides, right?
great idea!
My son graduated from Berkeley, where he received a fine education and got a great start in life. It breaks my heart to see so much money wasted on security, when it should be going to so many students in need of and deserving scholarships. The university could bring high-security-cost speakers to campus by streaming their talks on the internet. Speech would be free, and so would the security costs. The university already posts many lectures online, so this would be in keeping with existing practices. I do not want my taxpayer money wasted, and the futures of so many students squandered, to provide an arena for people whose ideas could more easily and less expensively still be made available to students, and even the public beyond.
159
As a Berkeley grad (and the sister and mother of Berkeley grads) I completely agree with this.
3
Unfortunately it was not the university's choice to have Milo show up in person. Student groups can book campus space for invited speakers and when the "Patriot" failed to do so properly, Milo vowed to come to Sproul steps--a free-speech area--and speak there. Had the university told him he could go online, he would have still come to campus, because he is a provocateur, pure and simple. The university, understandably not wanting to ban speech entirely or discriminate against difficult or unpopular speech, was between a rock and a hard place, which is exactly what Milo wants. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he's rubbing his hands in glee over using university resources that should, as you point out, be going to deserving students with financial needs, particularly since in California so many of them would be people of color. What I don't understand is why any two-bit loudmouth with no discernible credentials or value can command such a following, but that seems to be the way things are going in the country today (vide: the White House).
8
I remember when Edward Teller, a controversial speaker, gave a speech at UC Berkeley. His speech was shown on a large screen in two different large lecture halls. We all had a chance to sit in a lecture hall and listen to him. Why not use that for these expensive controversial rabble rousers? At least Teller was a scientist. What is this guy Yiannopoulos? Is he a scholar of note?
Dr. Hanlon's yearning for efficiency of public expenditure is a slippery slope analogous to Ronald Reagan and Ed Meese's desire for public order. Freedom is messy and not cheap - it costs in money and more, and those costs and inefficiencies we must be willing to bear as it is always more than worth the price. Just look at the societal attempts toward greater "efficiency" and see what is found, and the collateral costs they entailed. You want efficiency and sanitized order, look to North Korea. When it comes to civil liberties, I'm a libertarian. That transcends ideology.
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I get your argument, but North Korea is not exactly the best example of efficiency or sanitized order. They starve their people while barely able to create technology that was invented over 50 years ago.
That aside, cost is still a practical consideration. As an educator/administrator, cost is something I consider frequently. Would it be best for my English language learners if they all could benefit from high-quality bilingual education? Absolutely, and I would pounce on the opportunity to do so. However, it's simply not cost-efficient. At some point, someone has to make a call and ask the tough question, "Is this worth the expense?" In the case of bilingual education for every ELL in the US, the answer is no, unfortunately.
In the case of allowing every speaker on campus, regardless of cost, the answer is also "no." There can even be bright-line rules that do not cross political lines: If a speaker has traditionally cost more the $X, then they can stream their speech and/or participate in an online Q&A instead of coming to campus.
A school does not have unlimited resources to support every ideological consideration imaginable, so someone has to draw a line somewhere. Better that that line is drawn monetarily instead of ideologically.
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"Freedom is messy and not cheap" is glib. Ann Coulter and her like, or at the other end of the spectrum, the estimable and brilliant Noam Chomsky, don't need the venue or platform of UC Berkeley to make their views known.
I think I would go so far as to state that nobody should get paid, anything at all, to give speeches at public colleges, and that should then take care of the outrageous cost of security. Universities could use the money saved in much more that is necessary and desirable. Like reduced tuition.
And Rocky, there is nothing remotely efficient about North Korea.
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