Students threaten to sue UC over event
Officials firm on new date for Coulter speech
Students who invited rightwing pundit Ann Coulter to UC Berkeley next week gave campus administrators an ultimatum Friday: Let her speak on campus Thursday evening or they will sue the university in federal court on grounds UC is violating their constitutional right to free speech.
UC Berkeley responded quickly, warning that if Coulter shows up Thursday, as she has insisted she will, campus officials won’t be able to ensure the safety of participants because of security threats they’ve learned about. For that reason, they said, they have asked Coulter to speak the following week in the afternoon.
The standoff caps a dramatic
back-and-forth over the last week between UC Berkeley and Coulter — an author and television personality who was invited by two student groups to speak on campus April 27 — over when she might come to campus.
Campus officials contend that the two student groups signed a contract for Coulter’s appearance without consulting with them first or getting a security review, as required.
Earlier this week, campus officials canceled the Coulter talk on campus on that date, saying they could not safely accommodate her after learning there would be anti-Coulter violence. They also cited recent violent protests in Berkeley, as well as the Feb. 1 riot that caused $100,000 in damage on campus when another rightwing personality, Milo Yiannopoulos, tried to speak in the student union.
Campus officials offered to schedule Coulter’s talk in September. But Coulter said she was coming next week anyway, prompting campus officials to offer her May 2 instead.
At a news conference Thursday announcing the May 2 date, UC Berkeley police Capt. Alex Yao said police were caught by surprise by the large numbers of masked agitators and the orchestrated tactics they used to breach three rows of metal barriers. He said UC officials protect free speech without regard to political views, but also must keep people safe.
Coulter refused to come May 2, saying the day falls within “Dead Week” when classes are suspended and students are studying for finals. Besides, she tweeted Thursday, she will be busy that day. The semester’s last day of instruction is May 5.
Two student groups invited her: the Berkeley College Republicans and the nonpartisan BridgeUSA. Now, the Republican students and the national Young America’s Foundation that is paying for most of Coulter’s $20,000 speaking fee have hired Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco attorney and member of the Republican National Committee representing California.
In a letter to Vice Chancellor Stephen Sutton, Dhillon accused UC Berkeley administrators of singling out Coulter for unfair treatment in violation of the First Amendment.
She said administrators have placed restrictions on Coulter’s speech — requiring her to end her talk by 3 p.m. — but have not similarly restricted “innumerable speeches by prominent liberal speakers,” including Maria Echaveste, former adviser to President Bill Clinton on immigration. Students recently invited both Echaveste and Coulter to speak separately on immigration. Echaveste’s evening talk went on unimpeded.
Dhillon said another recent speaker, former Mexican President Vicente Fox, who was billed as “a vocal critic of President Trump’s policies,” also spoke after 3 p.m.
The attempted cancellation of Coulter’s speech also “comes on the heels of UC Berkeley’s similar silencing of two other speakers,” Yiannopoulos and David Horowitz, both conservative activists, whose talks were “canceled at the last minute on the pretext of being unable to provide adequate security,” Dhillon said. She called the cancellations “a ‘heckler’s veto’ to suppress the free speech rights of speakers properly invited” by students.
In her letter, she wrote: “It is ironic that UC Berkeley, known to many Americans as the birthplace of the Free-Speech Movement, is now leading the vanguard to silence conservative speech on campus.” Dhillon concluded her letter by giving the campus until 5 p.m. Friday to “cooperate with Ms. Coulter’s planned speech by providing a similar forum to her as that provided to other prominent speakers this month.”
UC Berkeley’s attorney, Christopher Patti, promptly made it clear that the campus
would not budge.
In a response to Dhillon, he wrote that campus police have received “mounting intelligence that some of the same groups that previously engaged in local violent action also intended violence at the Coulter event.”
Patti denied prohibiting any events from taking place on campus and said employees “have spent countless hours, including during weekends and vacations, working to enable the Berkeley College Republicans’ planned events” to go ahead safely.
Patti said the campus’ actions “have been wholly consistent with its obligations under the Constitution to protect the free speech rights of your clients, and its duty to protect the safety and security of the university community.”
Dhillon called the campus response “unacceptable” and said it leaves her clients “no choice but to seek relief from the courts.”
She said she’ll write UC Berkeley one more time, and that if campus officials don’t reverse their decision she’ll file a suit in the next few days.