Monthly Archives: June 2017

In the city known for launching the Free Speech Movement, protesters on the right and the left have clashed on the streetsPaul KurodaZuma Press

Julia, a writer who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, talks about the street-protest scene in Berkeley, Calif., this spring as if she had entered a war zone. "There are explosions happening everywhere. People are fighting. You're not entirely sure who is an ally, who isn't," she says.

That's part of the reason she won't give her last name, since she fears that she will be targeted, harassed or doxxed like so many others who have had their identities attached to the blowups here. For a few days, the city's mayor, Jesse Arreguin, even had to get himself security because of the threats he was receiving. "Our city is not going to be turned into a fight club," he says defiantly, though no one is quite sure in this city of 121,000 long known as a test bed for the First Amendment.

As the far right and far left have clashed here over what kind of speech is permissible, Julia has tried to stake out new space created by the recurring violence. She helped found a group called Pastel Bloc, whose members wear disarming pinks in the streets as they provide water and support to other "antifascist" activists who might be engaged in more disruptive actions. Think of it as sort of a medic crew with fairy-dust slogans like "Resistance is Magic." Anything to fight the growing sense of dread. "It's getting scarier to protest," she says.

The mosh pit started months ago at the city's famous university campus, where militant left-wing activists "shut down" conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos in February, setting fires, breaking windows, causing a campus-wide "shelter in place" order. Invited to speak by the Berkeley College Republicans--who have since filed a lawsuit against the school--the professional troll and self-described "dangerous faggot" never made it onto the stage. And as the story became national news, Berkeley again became a theater where a bigger battle over the rights and limits on free speech, dissent and respect all played out.

At their worst, the scrums have been belittling and violent, as grown men and women shout, punch and taunt one another or destroy property. But the questions many are fighting over cut to the core of the American democratic system. In a time when politics have turned toxic, are there ideas so repugnant and dangerous that they shouldn't be allowed to be uttered in public? Do certain words amount to attacks and therefore justify violence in return? Or must all communities endure the speech they hate most, even when the point of the speech is to make others angry?

These are centuries-old debates, and freethinking Berkeley has seen countless protests over the decades. Yet city and university officials also say there is something unprecedented happening now. While some locals have shown up with the standard placards and megaphones, others have traveled from afar, bringing smoke bombs and sticks, seemingly spoiling for a fight. In three big clashes this spring, dozens have been arrested and others have been sent to the hospital. "This level of political violence is something we have not seen before," says Arreguin. "This is a new situation."

And there are signs of it elsewhere. On May 29, the mayor of Portland, Ore., asked federal authorities to halt upcoming "alt-right demonstrations" after two men were stabbed and killed while trying to protect young women from a man yelling anti-Muslim slurs on a commuter train. The suspect in the stabbings entered the courtroom for his arraignment on May 30, casting himself as a champion of the Constitution. "Get out if you don't like free speech," he declared. The mayor had another message. "There is never a place for bigotry or hatred in our community," said Ted Wheeler, "and especially not now."

Many on the left say the words free speech are now being used as a cover for spreading hate in America. Many on the right say the left has been reacting violently to mere words. And in an era when Americans feel tense and divided, some groups have zeroed in on Berkeley as "a stage for open melee," as one conservative organizer put it, treating the town like a shrine to be captured or defended in a religious war.

Yiannopoulos, for his part, has promised to return to Berkeley for a "huge multiday" event later this year. "Free speech belongs to everyone, not just the spoilt brats of the academy," he wrote on Facebook, promising to dedicate each day of the event to a different "enemy of free speech, including feminism, Black Lives Matter and Islam."

There was a time when it appeared the spring confrontation could be avoided. Weeks before Yiannopoulos' planned appearance, scores of professors begged the university to cancel it, saying in a letter that he espouses views they find deplorable--"white supremacy, transphobia and misogyny"--and that he crosses a line by "actively inciting" his audience to harass people. At a previous stop on his campus tour, in Wisconsin, Yiannopoulos mocked a transgender woman who had once attended the school, while projecting her photo as she sat in the audience. And there were swirling fears that he would publicly target undocumented students at Berkeley, having promised to use the event to launch a campaign against "sanctuary campuses." (Yiannopoulos, who has said he'll "never stop making jokes about taboo subjects," says he was never going to single out students and describes the characterizations in the letter as "lies.") University officials criticized his "odious behavior" but said none of the concerns justified denying his right to speak.

Others in the community, however, disagreed. As dusk fell on Feb. 1, hundreds of protesters gathered peacefully on Sproul Plaza, where students launched a movement for free speech in 1964. Then things got hostile. "All of that changed, radically, when into the middle of the crowd marched--and I mean literally marched--100 to 150 individuals dressed in black from head to toe," says UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof, who was in the crowd.

It's not clear how many of them might have actually been students, but some marchers did identify as "antifa"--short for antifascist--activists known to use "black bloc" techniques to hide their identities as they protest en masse. With bandannas wrapped around their faces, the group tore down barricades, shot projectiles at police and lit a light stand on fire, causing more than $100,000 worth of damage. After the decision was made to cancel Yiannopoulos' event for safety reasons, some protesters spilled into nearby streets, crushing the front windows of bank chains, while other protesters cleaned up after them. Mogulof describes the black blockers as "highly disciplined," and says the display is "something we had simply never seen here."

Antifascist protesters have been showing up elsewhere. A woman allegedly shot one in Seattle while he was protesting another Yiannopoulos speech, and others hammered out limousine windows in Washington, D.C., on Donald Trump's Inauguration Day. While voices from all over the spectrum criticize the destructive methods that some of them use, antifascist groups also say that they've seen upticks in interest since the alt right has gained momentum, and people feel that "you have to take a side," says Shanta Driver, the national chair of the antifascist organization By Any Means Necessary.

Some antifascists who have been protesting in Berkeley--including many who embrace anarchist ideals of fighting government, capitalism and any form of hierarchy--say they have been unfairly labeled as agitators by the media. Many also defend methods like property damage as a lesser evil, justifiable in the face of "dehumanizing" speech. They contend that the "real violence" is spreading hateful ideologies and that shattered glass is "visual" protest. "That form of protest is not meant to look good. It's not meant to be diplomatic," says Louise Rosealma, an antifascist and anarchist who got clocked by a white nationalist protester, an incident that was recorded in a video that went viral. "It is meant to physically disrupt and shut down things that need to be shut down immediately."

Even for those who believe that broken windows or censorship can be justified, it's hard to decide which expressions can be reasonably called attacks and who deserves to be silenced. Some draw the line at advocating genocide or ethnic cleansing. Some draw the line at burning a cross on a front lawn. Some draw it at telling college students how to report their undocumented peers. Some simply say, "Free speech does not mean hate speech."

Others believe that the line drawing has gotten out of control, especially when people are demanding that a public university censor some speakers but not others. Naweed Tahmas, a Berkeley College Republican, says one of his liberal peers told him that the phrase build a wall is offensive hate speech. Another told him that hate speech should be banned from Berkeley. "Of course there's some courtesy you should take in speaking, but what they're trying to say is the government should restrict certain types of speech," Tahmas says, "and that's a slippery slope."

While many protesters on the left saw forcing Yiannopoulos from campus as a success, many on the right saw it as a call to action. Among them was Rich Black, a libertarian grant writer from the Los Angeles area who decided to organize a "comeback" in Berkeley, an event where right-wingers could "come and speak, from start to finish, without being physically shut down. That was the whole goal," he says. Then, at least in some ways, things spun out of his control.

Black helped organize rallies in Berkeley's city center to defend free speech in March and April. And the optics of the setting--a deep blue town where the city council has, for example, called for Trump's impeachment and decided to boycott any companies that help build his proposed border wall--proved to be catnip. Groups spread the news on 4chan, Reddit and alt-right forums. While some conservatives came just to show support for Trump or to hear speeches, Black says, others showed up to provoke the left in real life.

"That's what's sad about these events. They really attract the worst of the worst," Black says. "There is a huge faction of the right that is just like the left. They deal in absolutes. They're outrageously angry. They need an excuse to relieve a lot of that pent up aggression."

At one rally in April, an anonymous donor paid to fly a sign behind a plane in the sky: "Don't take the bait! Rise above the hate!" And at least one assembly this spring ended with no one hurt. But multiple meet-ups turned ugly. Police confiscated knives and bats and pipes. Some were bloodied, some were trampled.

Mayor Arreguin insists that any people who came to fight were not from his town and feels the city has been unfairly tarred as a place where people can speak their minds only if they're liberal. He doesn't have kind words for the "extreme" groups on either side. "Words are different from fists and bats and large wooden sticks that are bloodying people," he says, "and I certainly understand that people think certain words are objectionable and abhorrent and should not be tolerated, but we live in a free society."

Such principles are often cast aside online, where disagreeable ideas are routinely met with anonymous blowback. Mayor Arreguin had to take on the security detail after he criticized Yiannopoulos on Twitter and received violent threats via social media, email and phone. Black, the right-wing organizer, says he's gotten so many promises of physical harm from the people at either end of the spectrum that his new advocacy group, Liberty Revival Alliance, has considered hosting events "against the alt right." After the video of her being punched went viral, Rosealma says not only her address but also the addresses of her parents have been spread on the web, along with pictures of her as a child. Threats of rape have poured in.

Back on campus, the Berkeley College Republicans tried to host other conservatives this spring--David Horowitz and Ann Coulter--but both events were canceled.

The club says there were too many administrative roadblocks and filed a lawsuit alleging that the university effectively acted "to restrict and stifle the speech of conservative students whose voices fall beyond the campus political orthodoxy." The university has responded that cancellations have been related not to political views but to safety concerns that arose in the wake of the Yiannopoulos event--leading to more complicated logistics. A spokesperson says the school will keep pursuing the "delicate balance" between keeping people safe and upholding the First Amendment. The suit remains ongoing.

The university does not deny that the College Republicans have been having a hard time on campus. Tahmas, a 20-year-old rising senior studying political science and a member of the club, says when he and other members have set up their tables to attract new recruits, students have repeatedly torn up their signs or spit on them. On one occasion, he says, students poured drinks down on them from a building above. "We're constantly harassed," he says. "They are projecting stereotypes onto us, which are not true, and they're also projecting their worst fears upon us. They believe we're oppressors."

Yet while some students may still be furious with the Berkeley College Republicans for inviting controversy to the campus, Tahmas says that their meetings were also better attended by the end of the semester. Newcomers "are not necessarily Republicans either," he says. "They're just interested in hearing us. Because the more you attack or attempt to silence a viewpoint, the more people are interested in it."

That is a truth that the nation's founders understood when they enshrined a protection for minority viewpoints in the Constitution. But there is growing confusion about where that protection now starts and stops. Tahmas says he'll be ready to put out the table again come fall. "We're going to keep going out there every day," he says, "fighting against political correctness." And others will be ready to literally battle over such ideas.

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Fighting Words: A Battle in Berkeley Over Free Speech - TIME

There is no room across our broad spectrum of political beliefs for those who stifle discourse and thwart First Amendment rights. The epidemic of outrageous student behavior on college campuses needs to stop. The most recent episode was at the University of Notre Dame where dozens of students walked out of Vice President Mike Pence's commencement speech while others booed him. Pence was in the midst of criticizing campuses for fostering "speech codes, safe spaces, tone policing, administration-sanctioned political correctness all of which amounts to the suppression of free speech." He called these practices "destructive of learning and the pursuit of knowledge," and he's right.

Earlier in May, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos gave a commencement address at historically black Bethune-Cookman University where she faced jeers, and some students stood and turned their backs to her. It is true that some of this behavior was a reaction to her earlier statement that founders of historically black colleges and universities were "real pioneers" of school choice, betraying an ignorance about a time when black students weren't permitted to attend white colleges in the South and elsewhere. Regardless, a cabinet member didn't deserve this kind of disrespect.

On April 27, the University of California at Berkeley canceled the planned speech of conservative commentator Ann Coulter because of fears of violence. Coulter has been a frequent guest on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," and their exchanges have enlightened political discourse. Maher defended Coulter's right to speak and reminded us that during the 1960s anti-Vietnam War and free speech movement, Berkeley "used to be the cradle of free speech, and now it's just the cradle for (expletive) babies." He then compared the cancellation of Coulter's talk to "the liberals' version of book burning."

Coulter's experience followed the February cancellation of a speech at Berkeley by conservative agitator and then-Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos. Thugs wearing masks protested Yiannopoulos by breaking windows and setting fire to a propane tank, and officials canceled the event for reasons of public safety.

There is still a great deal of anger in the wake of President Donald Trump's election and the furtherance of his radical agenda, but that is no reason to trample on our tradition of free speech. We have many other avenues available for protest, including the pages of this newspaper, marches, attendance at town halls sponsored by our elected representatives, and letters to Congress. Of course, the ultimate means of protest will take place at polling booths in November 2018 when 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be up for grabs.

Aside from the discontent with Trump's administration, there is a deeper and much more troubling reason for recent campus protests. In 2016, McLaughlin & Associates surveyed 800 students at colleges across the country. The study was sponsored by the William F. Buckley Jr. Program at Yale and its subject was attitudes toward free speech on campus. An astounding 51 percent of students favored campus speech codes to regulate speech for students and faculty. Sixty-three percent favored requiring professors to use "trigger warnings" to alert students to material that they might find uncomfortable. This would include references to rape, misogyny and racial prejudice even if found in classic literature.

The study dug deeper and found that one-third of the students polled could not even identify the First Amendment as the part of the Constitution that protected free speech. Thirty-five percent thought the First Amendment does not protect "hate speech," while 30 percent of those who identified as "liberal" said the First Amendment is outdated.

Where did this country go wrong? Are we no longer teaching civics and the principles of American government? Have colleges muzzled the free marketplace of ideas that has always been the cornerstone of academic freedom?

One of the purposes of education is to introduce students to uncomfortable ideas, to challenge their assumptions, and to forge critical thinking skills in the red hot coals of debate. If college administrators disagree with this, then they are anti-intellectual. I urge all educators from high school to college to get back to teaching the basic tenets of our republic. Ironically, an iconic quote from English author Evelyn Beatrice Hall sums up the key rationale behind this issue: "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

Frank Batavick writes from Westminster. His column appears Fridays. Email him at fjbatavick@gmail.com.

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Batavick: Colleges becoming threats to free speech - Carroll County Times

OUR CITY is in mourning, our communitys anger is real, and the timing and subject of these events can only exacerbate an already difficult situation. So said Portland, Ore., Mayor Ted Wheeler in explaining why in the aftermath of the deaths of two good Samaritans controversial rallies planned for this month shouldnt be held. Mr. Wheelers concern for the raw feelings of his community is understandable, but he is completely off-base in trying to block the planned rallies and dangerously wrong in his reading of the U.S. Constitution.

Mr. Wheeler unsuccessfully appealed to federal officials to revoke a permit granted to a group to hold a pro-Trump, free-speech rally Sunday at a downtown federal government plaza. His request that a permit not be granted for a June 10 anti-Muslim rally was made moot when organizers opted Wednesday to cancel the rally and encourage participants to attend a similar event in Seattle instead. The mayor characterized the rallies as alt-right and said hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment.

Actually, as was pointed out by legal scholars and free-speech advocates, Mr. Wheeler is wrong about how constitutional protections of free speech have been interpreted by the courts. Speech, no matter how vile or distasteful, is protected in the United States. It can be banned only if it meets the legal threshold of threat or harassment.

It would have been far better for Mr. Wheeler to have followed the advice of the Oregon ACLU and reached out to rally organizers to explain why it might be in the communitys best interest to postpone the events. Not only are public passions still aroused about the deaths of two men who tried to protect two young women from anti-Muslim insults, but Portland has become the scene of rising tensions and clashes between extremists from both ends of the political spectrum.

Perhaps it is naive to think that organizers of Sundays rally might have actually listened to the mayor and allowed Portland to mourn the loss of those two fine men without further upset. Sadly, though, decency these days seems to be in short supply in Americas political debate. The most recent example was the stunt by comedian Kathy Griffin, who evidently thought it was humorous to portray the beheading of an American president. It was somewhat comforting that Ms. Griffin was widely condemned (including by some of the most ardent critics of President Trump) and that she responded with an abject apology. If only the provocateurs in Portland could be so moved.

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Portland's mayor is dangerously wrong about free speech - Washington Post

Retired police officer Kevin Cavanaugh is making the issue of free speech on college campuses a major focus of his campaign to represent Arizonas 1st congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives.

CD 1 encompasses the City of Flagstaff, home of Northern Arizona University, which has lately become a hotbed of liberal bias. Within just the past year, NAU professors have told students that Trump voters think people of color are whats wrong with America, docked a students grade for using the word mankind in an English paper, and even demanded that another student stop reading his Bible before class.

"We cannot allow ourselves to be hindered by anyone in a black mask, weapons or no."

During a February forum put on by the Political Science Department, moreover, NAU student Melissa Miller claims that she was publicly called out by a professor for her membership in Turning Point USA. Miller had already filmed most of the event, during which professors labeled President Trump a neo-fascist and the rapist-in-chief, but alleges that the professor waited until she temporarily left the room and stopped recording to claim that she had only come to the event in order to film fodder for TPUSAs Professor Watchlist website.

[RELATED: Profs taunt conservative student in faculty-wide email chain]

Students have gotten into the act, as well, posting signs outside of on-campus restrooms calling attention to pee privilege, organizing a trip to the border to leave supplies for illegal immigrants crossing the desert, and indignantly insisting that the schools president resign because she refused to make an open-ended commitment to safe spaces to protect students from hate speech.

Concerned by the widespread hostility toward, or at least ignorance of, First Amendment rights at NAU, Cavanaugh hosted a Freedom Rally at the campus on April 22 to call attention to the issue.

While The Lumberjack reports that the event was lightly attended, the subject matter was apparently deemed sensitive enough to merit precautions against possible protests, with the result that there were as many campus police officers on scene as there were NAU students.

[RELATED: Conservative students ARRESTED for handing out Constitutions]

Campus Reform recently sat down with Cavanaugh to learn more about some of the campus-related issues he plans to address during his campaign, which include campus carry legislation and the emergence of violent antifa protesters.

The first thing [Im campaigning on] is free speech, particularly on college campuses, but even at high schools, Cavanaugh began. Free speech on the part of conservatives, on the part of Christians, [and] on the part of moderates is being oppressed. If you identify yourself as a conservative, if you stand for pro-life, if you read your Bible before class like this young man did at NAU whom we discovered, youll be punished. And its wrong; it is not something that should happen in the United States of America.

[RELATED: NAU prez rejects safe spaces, students demand resignation]

Theres a reason the First Amendment is the first, and it involves free speech; our country was founded on free speech, he continued, noting that he chose to conduct his free speech rally at NAU because outside of Berkeley, its one of the most liberal, speech-suppressing, free thought-oppressing places in the country.

Cavanaugh vowed that, if elected, he will propose legislation that penalizes institutions that receive federal money if they limit free speech on campus, calling it a travesty of justice that so-called anti-fascist protesters were able to use violence to shut down speeches by Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of California, Berkeley earlier this year.

Look, this is socialist-Marxist ideology at work, he asserted, recounting that those same people were at our little rally up at NAU, with black masks and black hats and black gloves, but declined the opportunity to speak when he invited them.

[RELATED: Prof arrested for bludgeoning Trump supporters with bike lock]

Cavanaugh also offered enthusiastic support for the campus carry laws that many states have passed recently, which allow individuals with concealed carry permits to exercise their Second Amendment rights on public college and university campuses.

The Second Amendment says the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, he explained. My understanding of the Constitution is that it is a right-to-carry permit that extends from New York to California, from sea to shining sea.

Relating the story of a young woman who was going to quit NAU and go somewhere else because of the things that were happening, Cavanaugh said his advice was to stay and fight; stand and fight, an approach that he believes is necessary in order to effect change on any significant issue.

If you realize that good conservatives...are standing together to fight against liberalism, Marxism, [and] socialism on college campuses and throughout this country, he concluded, we can beat this scourge back.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @shannadnelson

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Former cop emphasizes free speech in congressional campaign - Campus Reform

Common Dreams

'Destructive Fossil Fuel Puppet' Trump Ditches Climate Deal with Fact-Free Speech Common Dreams Long-debunked fossil fuel industry talking points about lost jobs and economic "suffering" peppered the speech that was said to be "literally wrong about every single thing." The real estate mogul said "we are getting out" of the non-binding accord but ... and more »

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'Destructive Fossil Fuel Puppet' Trump Ditches Climate Deal with Fact-Free Speech - Common Dreams