Violent UC-Berkeley protest prompts Trump warning to university
WASHINGTON — After violent demonstrations at the University of California-Berkeley prompted the cancellation of a speech by a right-wing commentator, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to threaten to withhold federal funding from institutions that fail to guarantee free-speech rights.
“If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view – NO FEDERAL FUNDS?” Trump tweeted Thursday.
The president’s comment on the violent protest at the university that prevented the planned appearance Wednesday by Milo Yiannopoulos, a Brietbart.com contributor and self-professed provocateur, drew a quick response from UC-Berkeley.
In a statement Thursday, university spokesman Dan Mogulof blamed the violence on non-students who “infiltrated a crowd of peaceful students.” While the administration disagrees strongly with Yiannopoulos and his values, said Mogulof, “We are now, and will remain in the future, completely committed to free speech as essential to our educational mission and a vital component of our identity at UC-Berkeley.”
The free-speech Foundation for Individual Rights in Education also challenged the president’s take on the cancellation, saying in a statement, “FIRE has so far seen no evidence that Berkeley as an institution made any effort to silence Yiannopoulos.”
In January, UC-Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks denied a request by some faculty members to cancel the event rather than give a platform to Yiannapoulos’ “hate speech” – referring to a series of deliberately inflammatory comments by the British journalist about Muslims, feminists and African-Americans, including a series of Tweets about “Ghostbusters” star Leslie Jones that got him banned from Twitter.
University police called off the event shortly before he was to address the Berkeley College Republicans after masked protesters set fires and threw rocks and bricks through windows on the campus.
The Daily Californian, the student newspaper, reported that after police ordered the crowd to disperse, hundreds walked onto Telegraph Avenue and smashed ATMs and sprayed the words “Kill Trump.” A protester pepper sprayed the face of a Trump supporter as a KGO reporter interviewed her.
Berkeley College Republicans issued a statement that faulted “criminals and thugs” for silencing their speaker, and thanked the administration and police “for doing all they could to ensure the safety of everyone involved.”
“It is tragic that the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement is also its final resting place,” it added.
Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or at 202-662-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter.
