Controversial former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos plans to make a “comeback” at the University of California, Berkeley this year.
In an announcement published online on Friday, Yiannopoulos said he’s planning a “huge multi-day event” called “Milo’s Free Speech Week” at the liberal university. The event will include “talks and rallies and throw massive parties, all in the name of free expression and the First Amendment” on the UC Berkeley campus, he wrote.
“We will stand united against the ‘progressive’ Left,” he wrote. “We will loudly reject the venomous hectoring and moral hypocrisy of social justice warriors. Free speech belongs to everyone — not just the spoilt brats of the academy.”
It seems the events are not sanctioned by the university.
Yiannopoulos warned that if UC Berkeley doesn’t assist with the event that he would extend its duration to an entire month and establish a “tent city on Sproul Plaza protesting the university’s total dereliction of its duty and encourage students at other universities to follow suit.”
A spokesperson for UC Berkeley did not immediately return a request for comment.
Yiannopoulos said further details on the event will be released in the coming weeks, which will include information about “a special CINCO DE MILO event.”
Yiannopoulos is often associated with the alt-right movement that has evoked the ire of the Left. He made headlines due to a social media spat last summer with comedian Leslie Jones, when he chided the “Saturday Night Live” and “Ghostbusters” actress for her poor acting and said she was “Barely literate.” Yiannopoulos’s trolling, which was followed by a torrent of racist and insulting comments directed at Jones by his supporters, led to him getting banned from Twitter.
This year there has been a wave of backlash against the openly gay former editor.
In February UC Berkeley canceled an event with Yiannopoulos after a wave of violent protests. Later that month he resigned from Breitbart amid controversy that began after videos resurfaced this weekend showing him apparently expressing support for some instances of sex between adults and minors. He was also booted from the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Another fiery conservative figure, Ann Coulter, had an appearance canceled at UC Berkeley just this week due to concerns of another clash following a number of violent confrontation between left- and right-wing demonstrators that have hit the city in recent months. The university later reversed its decision and re-invited Coulter to speak on May 2.
