UC Berkeley faculty calls for boycott when conservatives speak

[Jose Garcia]

Source: The Hill

Faculty members at the University of California, Berkeley are calling for a campus boycott when conservative speakers are scheduled to speak in the city later this month.

In an open letter, professors and staff members are calling for classes to be canceled, for buildings to be closed and for students not to be penalized for not showing up to campus from Sept. 24 to 27, SFGate.com reported.

The letter comes ahead of "Free Speech Week," a four-day event during which controversial figures including Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos and Stephen Bannon are expected to appear.

The letter says signs point "towards an escalated and uncontrollable confrontation both on and off campus during these four days."
"Therefore, as faculty committed to the safety of our students and our campus, we are calling for a complete boycott of all classes and campus activities while these Alt-Right events are taking place at the very center of UC Berkeley’s campus," the letter says.

Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/news/351165-uc-berkeley-faculty-call-for-boycott-when-conservatives-speak

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

1. This is stupid, it just plays to their persecution complex and build their celebrity

Ignoring Dennis Prager worked just magically at my university.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. Again?

Again:

[7962]

3. What a bunch of horseshit. Grow up for God's sake. Give the RW even MORE ammo with this attitude.

And Berkley of all places. This basically admits that any conservative speaker is subject to violence by the left.
Cancel classes?? Just DONT GO to the speech. If theres no audience, future desire to speak will go away.

[GatoGordo]

4. Cui bono?

Who wins with this purely symbolic reaction?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

17. The UC Berkeley faculty gets some time off.

To protest, or just to hang out at a bar and be hip.

[exboyfil]

5. Fight speech with speech

Other faculty members should challenge everyone who signed this letter. In fact the rational ones should put out their own letter.

https://www.aclu.org/video/aclu-fight-hate-speech-more-speech

[MosheFeingold]

11. They'd get fired n/t

[Loki Liesmith]

26. No they wouldn't

Definitely wouldn't if tenured.

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. These clowns get all the free press they want on fox and breitbart.

They go to these places to stir up shit and cause a riot and they fucking know it.

[exboyfil]

7. Here is a link to the letter

Maybe the right does have a point about the "Studies" departments.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ISjcd8Suc-Nxs61HxsGiu5NnAPOo8KyK9Zso1MsQ1Rg/edit

The depressing thing is the number of Rhetoric and English professors on the list.

[Jose Garcia]

10. No Engineering Professors on the list

[exboyfil]

12. And less than 3% of the instructional faculty

I wish news reports would make a point of this. If responding to chat boards, point out that it is 58 professors and 9 lecturers. 20 or so of this 67 are Studies professors. Those are usually pretty small departments.

[Baconator]

8. Do you want to get made fun of?

That's how you get made fun of...

[get the red out]

9. Conservative speakers

When that term is used these days it is always a selection of the worst of the worst fire-breathing morons. It is never someone who could put together a cohesive expression of their world view.

[jcmaine72]

13. Conservatives spread hate and division wherever they're allowed to promote their venomous beliefs.

Boycott them early and often.

[exboyfil]

15. Canceling classes is not a boycott

You have to wonder what they are teaching that they can take 1/15th of the instructional time away from a class. That would be devastating in a math, science, or engineering class (my major).

[jcmaine72]

18. There are also safety issues to consider as well.

Violence, incitement to violence, and Nazi thuggery seems to follow cons wherever they're allowed to viciously hiss their hate these days. All things considered, perhaps cancelling classes when cons are about soapboxing their hate, deliberately trying to incite violence and mayhem, isn't necessarily the worst case scenario.

[RhodeIslandOne]

32. What if they rent that building forever?

How about if they fucking buy it?

Cal Berkeley can close forever! Brilliant! We showed them!

[Jose Garcia]

19. No engineering faculty signed the letter

[exboyfil]

20. And good for them

Only one Biology Lecturer. One Math professor. No Physics or Chemistry faculty. No Business faculty. No Philosophy faculty.

20 Studies faculty members though. 5 Rhetoric. 7 English. 5 Art. 3 Film and Media.

The Director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society.

[Yupster]

24. I don't even get the idea of boycotting a speech

You either go or you don't go. It's your choice.

[Igel]

29. Pro bono.

T'is all.

[Liberallover976]

14. Ineffective strategy

You fight ideas, with ideas, and debate, not by running away, and letting them grow unchecked.

[exboyfil]

16. Demand time on the podium

Perhaps the rules for outside speakers need to be changed to allow time for rebuttal and random selected question and answer. Maybe this can be done via a petition process on campus (20% of the student body mandates a rebuttal speaker for example).

[meadowlander]

21. Yes this.

The problem is that the "speakers" feel free to have security eject anyone who tries to challenge their opinion.

That's not a constructive dialogue, it's indoctrination and tacit approval of the message by anyone in the administration who allows that set up to continue.

Let's see Steve Bannon actually *debate* an equally prominent and qualified person on the left instead of just giving a speech and then hopping back in his car to get off campus before his goons start smashing shit.

[Yupster]

23. I watched the Ben Shapiro speech at Berkeley a couple of night ago on YouTube

What surprised me was how short the speech was - maybe 20 minutes or so.

The rest of time was questioning. I'd say about half the questions were people disagreeing with him. They asked intellectual questions, he answered them the best he could. As far as I could tell there wasn't anyone pulled away or yelling.

Meanwhile outside there were hundreds of cops and people chanting about Nazis.

[Tobin S.]

22. Robert Reich expressed his belief that these alt-right assholes have an ulterior motive

to their little excursion into liberal land. He doesn't think they are there to intellectually debate the finer points of conservative ideology in peaceful banter with the opposition. Their real motive is to incite a violent reaction from liberal protestors. If that were to happen, it would score a great propaganda victory for them. It would go something like this: "Here were these poor, innocent conservatives just trying to exercise their first amendment rights in a peaceful day of speeches, and then these antifa goons and liberal thugs started a riot destroying property and endangering innocent lives due to their intolerant world view." The effect would be that it would create sympathy for the real sociopaths further normalizing their fascist agenda while at the same time discrediting people who are on the right side of the issue and trying to reveal the truth.

That's the idea anyway. That's what he fears might happen. We will see. Sadly, this the way many of us have started to think in today's political environment. It's not unjustified.

[Loki Liesmith]

27. The real motive is to troll liberals

College Republicans get little attention and little funding. Trolling liberals increases both.

Liberals: don't let them troll you.

[nini]

30. Yep.. because that plays into the anti-fa and similar are the problem

I agree.. don't take the bait.

[RhodeIslandOne]

33. Robert Reich is a smart man

Unfortunately, this generation is easily trolled and tricked.

[taught_me_patience]

25. Are the poor babies afraid of speech they don't like?

this is stupid and looks bad.

[nini]

28. Poor babies?

?

Sounds like they don't want to even acknowledge the white supremacists are on campus. Don't engage with them at all.

[RhodeIslandOne]

31. Holy fuck, the left can be stupid!

I'm sure Ann, Milo, and all the other right wing shitbags are cackling that they are about to shut down a college THEY FUCKING HATE!!!!

Fucking idiots! What next? Commit hari kari in public in protest!? Fucking stupid!

[Mz Pip]

34. Stop taking the bait.

These RW hacks get so much free publicity with these kinds of stunts.

I live here. It's nuts. $600k was paid for security so dumbass Ben Shapiro could speak. Money that could have been spent on something useful.