Berkeley Chancellor’s Fireside Chat On ‘Free Speech’ Devolves Into Blaming Conservatives

On Wednesday, August 23, new UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ held a closed-door fireside chat about free speech in the faculty lounge with representatives from invited political student organizations. The conversation quickly devolved into student government officials, Cal Democrats, administrators, and other liberal-leaning organizations blaming the Berkeley College Republicans and The Berkeley Patriot (two conservative groups on campus) for promoting acts of violence on campus.

Neither the administration nor Chancellor Christ intervened in the conversation to establish that rhetoric, ipso facto, is not responsible for violence, unless it explicitly calls for violent acts. Nobody has even accused either group of promoting violent acts.

In response to the accusations hurled at conservatives during the discussion, the Berkeley College Republicans issued the following statement:

Liberal students used this opportunity to falsely accuse the Berkeley College Republicans and other conservative organizations of directly inciting violence, and shame conservatives for their espousal of unpopular political viewpoints. Individuals claimed without substantiation the Berkeley College Republicans are allies of “neo-Nazis” and “agitators” that harassed minorities.

The Chancellor’s “chat” revealed the shocking misunderstanding student leaders have of First Amendment rights, and the University’s responsibility, as a government institution, to uphold them. The only result was pernicious and direct shaming of the Berkeley College Republicans, and suggested attempts to set up subjective, Orwellian restraints on free speech.

The Berkeley Patriot echoed this sentiment:

We went into the meeting hopeful for a productive dialogue full of action items about how we could address campus safety in the face of upcoming controversial events. But much of the conversation was just a big roast session of Republicans on campus. They called us “agitators” instead of trying to work with us, and hurled baseless accusations of racism at the Berkeley College Republicans. They cut us off when we tried to respond to these accusations and false allegations. We hope everyone enters with the spirit of collaboration next time.

To these Republican organizations, it became abundantly clear this was not a discussion to “create a more shared understanding of free speech” as Chancellor Christ stated previously while promoting Berkeley’s “Free Speech Year.” There was hardly any analysis of federal and state statutes or court decisions to understand the legal and moral obligations the University of California Berkeley has in upholding First Amendment rights. And when there was any substantive discussion of the law and the facts governing Berkeley’s obligations, the Berkeley College Republicans were the only representatives bringing them up.

The conversation was mostly focused on group virtue-signaling, which promotes the “micro-aggression” culture and the demagogic lie from liberal student leaders that free speech is dangerous.

The Student Body President of UC Berkeley, Zaynab Abdulqadir-Morris, directly stated, in diametric opposition to well-settled law, that “hate speech is not free speech.”

As a representative of BCR, I quickly retorted using testimony from Ben Shapiro and Nadine Strossen during a Congressional Hearing on Challenges to Freedom of Speech on College Campuses.

Insisting, “Hate speech is not free speech” is false and dangerous. No matter how vile the speech, viewpoint neutrality is constitutionally compelled, and not optional.

In fact, the open espousal of hateful, racist views helps expose bigots for who they are; as Justice Louis Brandeis wrote in the Supreme Court case Whitney v. California, the “answer to hateful or offensive speech is not forced silence, but more speech.”

Does free speech give you the right to genuinely threaten a person? No, and those individuals should be prosecuted before the law regardless of their political ideology.

In response to these facts, several of the students seemed stumped, and administrators seemed uneasy. It is a sad day when the administration and student government officials drastically misunderstand the bipartisan views regarding the First Amendment.

The conversation devolved further. We spent the next portion of time discussing what “consenting” to free speech means. This suggests that words constitute “assault” and “rape.” Shapiro highlighted this sentiment in his opening statement before Congress, “as Haidt writes, this is why the idea that speech is violence is so dangerous. It tells the members of a generation already beset by anxiety and depression that the world is a far more violent and threatening place than it really is. It tells them that words, ideas, speakers can literally kill them.”

The next policy suggested by the liberal students in order to respect “consent and a safe space,” was to inject themselves into the process of choosing which conservative speakers are invited to campus.

Naweed Tahmas, EVP of BCR fired back, “Then give us some conservative speakers you would like to see at Berkeley.”

Crickets. Not one suggestion came from these student leaders.

Why? Because in the abstract, student leaders and the administration seem committed to free speech. In reality, they do not want conservative viewpoints on campus. Regardless, the Berkeley College Republicans remain committed to bringing conservative speakers to campus.

Bradley Devlin is a student at the University of California Berkeley studying Political Economy and serves as the secretary of the Berkeley College Republicans.