Berkeley Student
Newspaper Publishes Essays Defending Violence
by Joel B. Pollak 7 Feb 2017
The Daily Californian, the student
newspaper at the University of California, Berkeley,
has published a series of op-eds defending the use of violence to shut down a
lecture on campus by Breitbart Tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos last week.
The series is called “Violence as self-defense,”
ostensibly on the premise that conservative speech is a physical threat.
UC Berkeley, a public campus once celebrated as the
birthplace of the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s, now apparently celebrates
the use of violence to suppress free speech and violate the civil
right rights of guest speakers and fellow students.
One essay,
by Berkeley student Josh Hardman, celebrates the “plurality of tactics,” including
violence, that suppressed Milo’s speech. Castigating the Berkeley
administration for allowing the Berkeley College Republicans their “racist,
xenophobic, sexist extravaganza” in the first place, Hardman argues that the
right free speech does not include “hate speech.” He adds that violence in the
service of shutting down violence may not really deserve to be classified as
“violence” at all: “I urge you to consider whether damaging the windows of
places like banks and the Amazon student store constitutes ‘violence’,” he
writes.
Juan Prieto, an “undocumented student” (i.e. illegal
alien), writes
that the violence of the so-called “anti-fascist” rioters made him feel safer,
because he was afraid that Milo would “dox” him — i.e. release his name,
identity, and other personal data. The campaign against “sanctuary campuses”
that Milo was to have launched, Prieto writes, would have used “the power of
the state (immigration officers) to deport some of the most outspoken of us,
therefore threatening our freedom of speech.” He thanks the rioters for
damaging the campus, banks, and businesses nearby: “The so-called ‘violence’
against private property that the media seems so concerned with stopped white
supremacy from organizing itself against my community,” he argues.
Reporter and illustrator Desmond Meagley claims in
another op-ed that
the violence was necessary to prevent Milo
from instigating violence against students on Berkeley’s campus.
“There was no easy way to shut down the event and keep Yiannopoulos and his
fans from inciting violence,” he insists. Milo’s ideas, he claims, are
their own unique form of violence: “The violence that forms the foundation of
Yiannopoulos’ ideology is far worse than any tactic the black bloc uses.”
Lest any readers object to the viewpoints above, Berkeley
alumna Nisa Dang warns
them to “check” their “privilege.” She argues that “no protest is nonviolent.”
Students were “compelled” to protest violently, she says, because Milo’s words
make students feel unsafe, and therefore call for pre-emptive action: “If
I know that you are planning to attack me, I’ll do all I can to throw the first
punch.” Adding that “police are violent agents of the state,” she claims
that their very presence — limited as it was at the Milo event — “creates an
atmosphere that perpetuates violence on community members.” She then mocks Milo
for not facing whatever violence the rioters had in store — “To Milo: I’m sorry
that you were too scared to stand your ground” — and hints that he ought to be
murdered by those who survived genocides by “killing Nazis and people just like
them.”
University of
California, Berkeley
Haas
School of Business is a business school at the University of California,
Berkeley.
Note: Richard C. Blum
is a board member for the Haas School of Business, married to Senator Dianne
Feinstein, a regent at the University of California, and an honorary
trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Brookings Institution
(think tank), and the International Rescue Committee.
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
David H. Romer
was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (think tank), and is a professor
at the University of California, Berkeley.
Andrew S. Grove was
a benefactor at the University of California, Berkeley, and an overseer
at the International Rescue Committee.
John C. Whitehead
was an overseer at the International Rescue Committee, and an honorary
trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Richard C. Blum
is an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), married
to Senator Dianne Feinstein, a regent at the University of California,
and a board member for the Haas School of Business.
Haas
School of Business is a business school at the University of California,
Berkeley.
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