A pair of conservatives were confronted by two protesters on the University of California, Santa Cruz’s campus last week.
Free speech activist Hayden Williams was on campus last Friday for an event he was headlining titled “Free Speech and Campus Activism,” which was being put on by the college Republican group on campus. Along with the group’s president, Dylan Temple, Williams was tabling for the event with several others throughout the day when two people approached them.
An 87-second video, obtained by the Washington Examiner on Thursday, shows two protesters making a mess of the tent set up by the college Republican group. Williams can be seen trying to pull a flag away from one of the protesters who shouted, “I think this guy’s trying to assault me,” before Williams got knocked to the ground during the struggle.
“The UCSC College Republicans’ property as well as desecrating the flag. I was holding a Trump 2020 flag, the assailant grabbed it, pulled the flag towards themselves, and then pushed me down into a large formation of jagged rocks,” Williams told the Washington Examiner. “I was still holding the flag when struck, and when I hit the ground.”
The video does not show when the protesters arrived or how the confrontation began, but Williams claims it was spontaneous. “The two people walked up to our table and immediately started destroying our property,” William said. He called them “two left-wing activists.”
When the protesters left the scene, Temple followed them until campus police caught up with them.
Temple told the Washington Examiner, “I am scared for my physical safety as I see Hayden’s assault as an escalation of this effort to harass and intimidate me and members of the UCSC College Republicans.”
Temple said he intended on pressing charges for property damage, and Williams said he planned on pressing charges for assault. Temple also said he didn’t know the identity of the protesters, and campus police won’t release their identities.
The university police didn’t respond to a request for comment, but Scott Hernandez-Jason, the campus’s director of news and media relations, told the Washington Examiner that campus officials were aware of the altercation and that campus police were investigating what happened.
“UC Santa Cruz is committed to ensuring that all members of our campus community are able to exercise their constitutionally protected rights of free expression, speech, and assembly, and that they are able to do so in a safe environment. Free speech is uniquely important to a university, as it allows for the open exchange of ideas integral to our fundamental missions,” he said.
Hernandez-Jason added that the UCSC campus believes that “the free exchange of ideas requires mutual respect for our differences.”
Leftist attacks College Republicans tabling for free speech @ucsc!
SPITS on American flag and calls it a symbol of “white supremacy”!
UC Santa Cruz still silent about this incident of political violence. Updates as story develops. pic.twitter.com/0sELEnKOQe
— Hayden Williams (@HaydenTWilliams) February 13, 2020
This was not the first time Williams was harassed on a California college campus. Almost exactly a year ago, a student on the University of California, Berkeley’s campus was videotaped threatening to shoot Williams in addition to knocking his phone out of his hand and punching him in the face.
Williams, who said this is “at least” the sixth time he’s been the victim of similar incidents, said that “violence towards conservatives is normal on the plurality if not majority of college campuses in America, and conservative students face these kinds of struggles every day. Only through persistence and having our voices heard can we ever expect to change this toxic culture.”
