The Berkeley Patriot is a conservative student group at UC Berkeley, and they have invited the somewhat infamous speaker to come give a speech next month.
As the last line notes, this will not be the first time this student group has invited the provocative Milo to campus. Last time they did it, it was quite a mess.A UC Berkeley spokesman said the university has been working with a student organization that plans to bring conservative authors and provocateurs Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter, as well as recently resigned White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, to campus next month.
As part of a “free speech week” gathering Sept. 24-27 at UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza, a registered student organization called Berkeley Patriot has been negotiating terms for the trio, two of whose speeches earlier this year were canceled by protests.
And it didn't end there. March, April, and August all saw echoes of that day, as right and left wing protesters held counter demonstrations. The overwhelming majority of protesters have been peaceful, but each case has seen a small group of violent 'black bloc' activists engage in general mayhem.Over 1,500 people gathered on the steps of Sproul Hall to protest the event. The university had been a non-violent, student gathering until a group of 150 black bloc protestors slowly entered the crowd and interrupted the protest.[4][3] The interrupting protesters, which included Antifa activists and some who identified themselves as members of the left-wing group By Any Means Necessary,[5][6] set fires, damaged property, threw fireworks, attacked members of the crowd, and threw rocks at the police.[3] Within twenty minutes of the start of the violence, the Yiannopolous event was officially canceled by the university police department due to security concerns, and protesters were ordered to disperse.[4][7] The protests continued for several hours afterwards, with some protesters moving into downtown Berkeley to break windows at several banks, a Starbucks, a Target, a Sprint store, and a T-Mobile store.[8][6] Among those assaulted were a Syrian Muslim who was pepper sprayed and hit with a rod by a protester who said "You look like a Nazi",[9] and Kiara Robles, who was pepper sprayed while being interviewed by a TV reporter.[10] One person was arrested for failure to disperse, and there was an estimated $100,000 in damage.[11]
Berkeley's Mayor has had enough. He's tired of his city being used as a battleground between warring factions, and he wants Berkeley to shut Milo down.
The mayor can be forgiven for not wanting to deal with black-clad masses running through the streets smashing windows and beating people up. Sympathy for his position only grows when you consider that it's very likely that virtually nobody at Berkeley actually wants to listen to Milo speak - he would be considered repulsive almost anywhere, (even CPAC didn't want him) and he's going to be especially unwelcome at Berkeley, which leans heavily to the left. What possible purpose does it serve the city to host a man like Milo, when you consider the likely outcome?In the aftermath of a right-wing rally Sunday that ended with anarchists chasing attendees from a downtown park, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin urged UC Berkeley on Monday to cancel conservatives’ plans for a Free Speech Week next month to avoid making the city the center of more violent unrest.
“I don’t want Berkeley being used as a punching bag,” said Arreguin, whose city has been the site of several showdowns this year between, on the one hand, the left and its fringe anarchist wing, and on the other, supporters of President Trump who at times have included white nationalists.
“I am concerned about these groups using large protests to create mayhem,” Arreguin said. “It’s something we have seen in Oakland and in Berkeley.”
This is not a new problem when it comes to the Freedom of Speech. Indeed, what the mayor is calling for is a classic case of the legal definition of the Heckler's Veto.
The courts have been somewhat inconsistent on the issue. In general, they have frowned on government bureaucracies attempting to shut down protests or gatherings on the basis that they may cause violence, but they have tended to back efforts by police officers to shut down events in the face of immediate violence. Applying that logic to this situation, one might expect courts to say that Berkeley cannot prevent students from inviting Milo to speak, but be ok with the police chief cancelling the event at the last minute because it seems certain that violence is about to ensue. Indeed, that's pretty much exactly what happened back in February. But of course, by then it was too late...Antifa was already worked up and ready for a rampage. Does the failure to maintain order in February justify preventing Milo from attempting to speak again?In the strict legal sense, a heckler's veto occurs when the speaker's right is curtailed or restricted by the government in order to prevent a reacting party's behavior. The common example is the termination of a speech or demonstration in the interest of maintaining the public peace based on the anticipated negative reaction of someone opposed to that speech or demonstration.
Personally, I'm a giant fan of the 1st Amendment, so my position tends to be "Berkeley is a public university, so they can't discriminate against speakers. Maintaining order is a job for the police, not for Berkeley administrators." But obviously, this is a fuzzy line, and reasonable people can disagree about where it should be drawn. How do you think Berkeley should handle this situation?
