Judith Butler and a dozen other Berkeley professors urgently wanted Milo Yiannoppoulos and his “Dangerous Faggot” tour banned from the campus, but University of California Chancellor Nicholas Dirks delivered a strong free-speech explanation of why he won’t cancel the speech and can’t.’’ In an open letter, he said, “From a legal perspective, the U.S. Constitution prohibits UC Berkeley as a public institution from banning expression based on its content or viewpoints, even when those viewpoints are hateful or discriminatory.”
He also rejected the argument that Yiannopoulos, an unusually sharp-tongued apostle of the far right, regularly engaged in so many “insulting behaviors” during his speeches that he should not be protected under free-speech principles. This was quite a good performance from Chancellor Dirks, singular only because ringing defenses of free expression are currently so rare on our campuses.
Dirks also argued that the speaker’s values “are at odds with the values of our campus.” Many of us will disagree with that (including the whole diversity juggernaut and its detractors, I would think).
Another noteworthy point: sponsors of the talk, the Berkeley Republicans, will pay a basic security fee for protection against disruption, but they won’t pay the jacked-up fee normally imposed on conservatives because of threats from demonstrators of the left. Charging conservatives a lot of money to cope with trouble from the left is a form of heckler’s veto, and it’s good to see that Berkeley is beyond that.
“… who is mainly a bomb-thrower, not a thinker …”
I understand the figure of speech you’re using. In the end, however, he was prevented from speaking by literal bomb throwers.
“…by inviting someone who is mainly a bomb-thrower, not a thinker. ”
The deep thinkers of the left got attention last night, that’s for sure.
This is so ironic. I just posted a comment on this site on a different topic describing how Alan Dershowitz tried to prevent Judith Butler from exercising freedom of speech in 2013. This shows how much she actually believes in it.
It should not go unremarked that the campus Republicans are showing quite a lack of seriousness by inviting someone who is mainly a bomb-thrower, not a thinker. They’ll get attention but not respect.