Quote:
Originally Posted by ecriture d'adulte
Free speech has come to mean something bizarre to the alt right/concern trolls. Nobody has any sort of constitutional right to use the facilities at Berkeley to give a talk and students certainly shouldn't have the power to invite whoever. There is nothing wrong with public universities, especially elite research universities, simply acting like their private counterparts and not provide safe spaces for trolls, creationists, and other assorted idiots.
I agree, no one has the right to just show up and speak inside whatever private property they chose to, but Berkeley literally made agreements to let him speak. He's not some random who broke into a classroom out of nowhere and started shouting inside the auditorium, he was nominated to speak by a student group (which doesn't mean anything) but was then given approval to speak by the university on their property (which means everything).
What mistake did he make by showing up after being given approval? I don't even believe his free speech rights (that the university granted) were infringed upon because he was never disallowed to speak, he cancelled due to safety concerns and I agree that 99.9999999999% of the protesters were peaceful and have the right to protest, but your argument that he just showed up against the will of Berkeley is not accurate
If Berkeley had said "sorry we changed our minds" but he showed up anyway, that would be one thing, but that's not what happened