Fogdog
Well-Known Member
She wasn't denied equal access to facilities, she was denied the right to deliberately put students at risk and disrupt finals week. The university quite responsibly counter-offered to schedule the event to occur at a time when students would not be at risk from a riot and free shuttle service to her speaking engagement. Coulter cancelled because speaking wasn't her objective. Right wingers don't understand that Berkeley is an educational institution, not a public forum for their political speeches.Anne Coulter was the other speaker in a two part series on immigration at Berkeley. She was denied equal access to facilities by the possibility of a Heckler's veto, which is unconstitutional and a clear violation of the first amendment.
Well established case law.
The same pattern has been observed with other conservative speakers at UCBerkeley while such high profile speakers as Bill Mahr, Vicente Fox and others enjoy full access to all the publicly funded facilities.
The lawsuit is already been started. Others to follow against the city of Berkeley and Berkeley PD.
Well established case law. LOL
Here's what the Chancellor at UC Berkeley said:
Contrary to some press reports and circulating narratives, the UC Berkeley administration did not cancel the Coulter event and has never prohibited Ms. Coulter from coming on campus. Instead, we received a request to provide a venue on one single day, chosen unilaterally by a student group without any prior consultation with campus administration or law enforcement. After substantial evaluation and planning by our law enforcement professionals, we were forced to inform the group that, in light of specific and serious security threats that UCPD’s intelligence had identified, there was no campus venue available at a time on that date where the event could be held safely and without disruption. We offered an alternative date for the event (which was rejected) and offered to work with the group to find dates in the future when the event could occur. Throughout this process our effort has been to support our students’ desire to hold their event safely and successfully.
Yet again, right wing radicals oppose education.