<p class="p1">The University of California Berkeley&rsquo;s Commission on Free Speech is blaming conservative student organizations, and the speakers they hire, for causing unrest and violence on campus.</p>
<p>The Commission on Free Speech was created at the behest of University Chancellor Carol Christ following a tense fall 2017 semester in which the school spent $4 million on security costs. In a recent report, the Commission claimed Trump&rsquo;s election legitimized &ldquo;ultra-conservative rhetoric, including white supremacist views and protest marches&rdquo; and thus &ldquo;encouraged far-right and alt-right activists to &lsquo;spike the football&rsquo; at Berkeley.&#8221;</p>
<p>The school also claims that &ldquo;at least some&rdquo; of the student-organized events that caused violence in 2017 were part of a &ldquo;coordinated campaign to organize appearances on American campuses likely to incite a violent reaction, in order to advance a facile narrative that universities are not tolerant of conservative speech.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The political unrest at Berkeley last year came to a head in February 2017 when left-wing students broke windows and set things on fire in protest of a planned appearance by right-wing speaker Milo Yiannopoulos. Later that year, Berkeley rescheduled a planned appearance by conservative pundit Ann Coulter for a date in May when classes were not in session. Coulter canceled the event.</p>
<p>Speakers like Yiannopoulos and Coulter are motivated only by &ldquo;the pursuit of wealth and fame through the instigation of anger, fear, and vengefulness in their hard-right constituency,&rdquo; claims the report, and left-wing students are right to fear for their safety when such individuals are present.</p>
<p>Mr. Yiannopoulos, after reading the report, blasted Berkeley&#8217;s Commission as &#8220;Marxist thugs&rdquo; who criticize &ldquo;people they don&rsquo;t listen to, books they haven&rsquo;t read, and arguments they don&rsquo;t understand&rdquo; and noted that the report &ldquo;gets Berkeley off the hook&rdquo; over claims that it censors conservative speech.</p>
<p>The Commission&#8217;s report urges student ;organizations not to invite speakers with &lsquo;provocative&rsquo; views and proposes new rules that would force students to provide 1 security volunteer for every 50 people expected to attend any &#8220;potentially disruptive&#8221; events. Students may also be required to explain why they want to host such an event and how that event is in line with the school&rsquo;s values.</p>
<p>&ldquo;If you have a very small group that&rsquo;s inviting a speaker who can be predicted to impose massive disruption and cost on the campus&hellip;it seemed to us that the least we can expect of the members of that student group is to just give a public account of themselves,&rdquo; explains Commission co-chair and Berkeley Philosophy Professor R. Jay Wallace. &ldquo;Tell us why you think it&rsquo;s important to invite this person. What value will their perspective bring to campus?&rdquo;</p>
<p>Wallace insists these rules would apply only to a small number of events and could not be used to vet or block groups from speaking. ;</p>