Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

Photo above, "UC Berkeley" by Charlie Nguyenis licensed under CC BY 2.0

March 2019 – On at least two occasions, University of California-Berkeley has bowed to demands from left-wing extremist groups and violated free speech rights of members in two conservative campus groups, Young America’s Foundation and Berkeley College Republicans.

Speaking events sponsored by YAF and BCR were terminated by UC Berkeley amid violent protests by radical leftists. UC Berkeley cancelled appearances of then Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos in February 2017 and conservative columnist and commentator Ann Coulter the following November.

Also, after a campus visit by conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro, student organizers contended their constitutional rights were violated when UC Berkeley charged the conservative groups three times the security fees that it charged a leftist student group hosting Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

In early December 2018, YAF and BCR announced victory in litigation against UC Berkeley. The university settled, agreeing to pay the two groups $70,000 and rescind the university’s unconstitutional “high-profile speakers policy.” UC Berkeley also rescinded its discriminatory security fee policy and abolished its heckler’s veto, ensuring that radical leftist protestors will no longer be able to shut down conservative expression.

yaf.org, 12/3/18; washingtonexaminer.com, 12/3/18;
americanthinker.com, 12/4/18