Trying to cover for their mismanagement, the RW organizers of UC Berkeley’s Free Speech Week changed their speaker list, as deadlines loomed and some listed speakers indicated they had not even been contacted by organizers.
The show will apparently go on despite a “murky” list of confirmed speakers. As of this writing Coulter and Bannon have been reported as back to headline the bill.
Seeking further controversy, the organizers have continued to frame themselves as discriminated against even as the Ben Shapiro event funded by some of the same parties as Free Speech Week, went relatively smoothly.
The RW bot-framing on social media now characterizes faculty concern for student safety as some imaginary attempt by a monolithic UCB faculty “trying to force a cancellation of Free Speech Week”. More fascinating is a social media bot- attempt to suggest that STEM and non-STEM faculty are in some imaginary ideological/disciplinary conflict.
Gosh, it seems like there might be minimal campus disruption or civil disorder, and isn’t that the objective for free speech in the public sphere.
Right-wing snowflakes continue to gin up the possibility of violence. Darn those heightened contradictions.
The new list, released Wednesday, includes Coulter and Bannon:
1. Sunday 9/24, 12PM to 1PM, Savio Steps, Upper Sproul Plaza, Miss Elaine (unconfirmed)
2. Sunday 9/24, 5:00PM to 6:45PM, Savio Steps, Upper Sproul Plaza, speaker Lisa De Pasquale (confirmed), and Lucian Wintrich and Chadwick Moore (both unconfirmed)
3. Monday, 9/25, 12PM to 1 PM. Savio Steps, Upper Sproul Plaza, Ariana Rowlands (confirmed)
4. Monday, 9/25, 5PM to 7PM, Savio Steps, Upper Sproul Plaza, SABO and Monica Crowley (unconfirmed)
5. Tuesday, 9/26, 12pm to 1PM Lower Sproul Plaza, Ryan Girdusky (unconfirmed)
6. Tuesday, 9/26, 5PM-7PM, Lower Sproul Plaza, David Horowitz (confirmed) and Pamela Geller (unconfirmed)
7. Wednesday, 9/27, 12PM-1PM, Savio Steps, Upper Sproul Plaza, Stelion Onufrei, SARGOH and Mike Cernovich (all unconfirmed)
8. Wednesday, 9/27, 5PM-7PM, Savio Steps, Upper Sproul Plaza, Milo Yiannopoulos (confirmed) and Steve Bannon, Ann Coulter and Alex Marlow (last three unconfirmed)
www.sfchronicle.com/...
According to campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof, however, the campus had already refused the Berkeley Patriot’s initial request for the campus to subsidize the cost of Free Speech Week. Mogulof added that although the Berkeley Patriot had repeatedly stated that they took issue with the campus administration’s refusal to subsidize the costs, the group still signed the contracts.
The costs of BCR’s Ben Shapiro event Thursday were subsidized, Mogulof said, because Chancellor Carol Christ wanted to challenge the “false narrative” that UC Berkeley would not allow conservative or libertarian speakers on campus.
“They were asked to sign a contract that is identical — that BCR signed — that is identical to the contract the campus (itself) would sign if they wanted to use Zellerbach,” Mogulof said. “They want preferential treatment. They will not receive it.”
The campus administration appreciates that the student organization has attempted to satisfy the essential requirements for those events they proposed to hold in Zellerbach auditorium on 9/27 and Wheeler auditorium on 9/24, 2017. In spite of support provided by campus staff and administration to these students, the student organization fell short of what is minimally required by standing policies and standard contracts that apply to every other student organization on the Berkeley campus with regard to their tentative reservations at these two venues.
While Berkeley Patriot did, at the last minute, sign the necessary contracts for these venues late in the day on Friday, 9/15, the student organization failed to fully secure its reservations by submitting the necessary payments by the 5 p.m. deadline. To be clear, the Berkeley Patriot missed a total of three deadlines to execute these contracts. They were told on 8/11 they needed to sign and execute these contracts by 8/18. They did not. They were told on 8/22 they needed to sign and execute these contracts by 8/25. They did not. They were told, in writing, for the last time, on 9/13 that the contracts must be signed and executed by 9/15 at 5 p.m. They did not.
As per the standing policy that governs all events hosted and organized by student organizations, Berkeley Patriot was also required to fill out and return to the Special Events Unit of UCPD Police Services request forms for three of their 11 proposed events. The campus will continue in the coming week to work with the student organization to complete these forms and coordinate the security arrangements that UCPD has determined to be necessary for the events. The student organization had an opportunity to appeal UCPD’s security requirements for their remaining events and did not appeal.