As president of the Berkeley College Republicans in 2017, I had a hand in inviting various conservative speakers to campus, several of whom were unable to speak owing to stonewalling by university administrators or outright riots by students and outside groups.
More than a year later UC Berkeley’s “Free Speech Commission” – set up in the wake of these tumultuous events – has produced its findings, laying the blame squarely on the Berkeley College Republicans for exercising our right to free speech in the first place.
First, the commission’s findings have little to do with free speech and more to do with a completely backward and wrongheaded understanding of the role of public universities in civic life. Taxpayer dollars are meant to go toward protecting their children’s civil rights and physical safety. The government – particularly public universities – serves the people, not the other way around. The Constitution spells out the duties the government has toward its citizens, not the duties citizens owe to their government. Just as police officers are obligated to protect citizens, so are universities obligated to protect the rights of its students.
The commission’s findings are also blatantly hypocritical and nonsensical. University administrators and faculty continually complain about the “marginalization” of racial and sexual minorities, yet they take it upon themselves to marginalize the most embattled of ideological minorities on their campuses: conservatives.
They call us, the Berkeley College Republicans, a “small group” – even though we have more than 1,000 members on our mailing list. The commission notes “the acute distress [the speaking events] caused (and was intended to cause) to staff and students, many of whom felt threatened and targeted,” but fails to mention the acute distress conservative students, such as myself, experienced as we were threatened and targeted by outside groups, including self-described “anti-fascists.” They label our earnest efforts a “coordinated campaign,” as if we all conspired to have other people destroy our private property as well as verbally and physically harass us.
They even assert that we didn’t have to exercise our right to free speech directly on campus. But all this begs the question: if the university can’t protect our rights on campus, a government-owned and operated space, is it really doing its job?
And what does this so-called “Free Speech Commission” recommend for the future?
No, not allowing campus and city police to do their jobs and prevent hecklers from violently shutting down events. No, not instituting freshman orientation programs calling upon all students to respect their peers’ constitutional rights. No, not even an apology to conservative students for the gross infringement of their rights by outside groups and university administrators.
Instead, this esteemed commission recommends further scrutiny of student organizations and offering counter-programming alongside controversial (read: conservative) speaking events. Yes, that’s right, the commission argues that conservative students and taxpayer money should go to fund non-neutral speaking events to counter their own free speech.
On a final note, the commission goes on to brag that three-fourths of its incoming freshman class agree with the statement, “the University has the responsibility to provide equal access to safe and secure venues for guest speakers of all viewpoints — even if the ideas are found offensive by some or conflict with the values held by the UC Berkeley community.”
Presumably the other quarter agree that the university should violate the First Amendment, but the “Free Speech Commission” seems to think 3 out of 4 is an acceptable grade.
For the “best public university in the world” and the “birthplace of the Free Speech Movement,” UC Berkeley has the lowest standards when it comes to free speech. I give UC Berkeley and its commission an F on this one.
