The Volokh Conspiracy

Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent

Volokh Conspiracy

The anti-free-speech movement at UC Berkeley

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Protesters watch a fire on Sproul Plaza during a rally against a scheduled speaking appearance by Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos on the University of California at Berkeley campus on Wednesday. (Ben Margot/Associated Press)

From the Los Angeles Times (Matt Hamilton, Teresa Watanabe & Peter H. King):

A speech by conservative firebrand and British writer Milo Yiannopoulos was canceled at UC Berkeley on Wednesday amid a violent protest that sparked at least one fire….

Witnesses said some windows were broken at the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, where Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak at an event hosted by the Berkeley College Republicans.

The same thing happened last month at UC Davis….

In the weeks before Yiannopoulos' planned Berkeley appearance, administrators received hundreds of letters from faculty, students and others demanding they bar him from speaking.

One letter from a dozen faculty members argued that his talk could be canceled on the grounds that his actions—which they called "harassment, slander, defamation and hate speech"—violated UC Berkeley's code of conduct.

Appalling.