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Ann Coulter says she will not speak at Berkeley: 'It?s a sad day for free speech' - LA Times
This is shameful and exposes liberals for the anti democratic beings they have become.
The controversy over conservative commentator Ann Coulter’s planned appearance this week at UC Berkeley took another turn Wednesday when she and her sponsors pulled out — even as campus police readied anyway for “riot-like” demonstrations.
“I’m so sorry for free speech [being] crushed by thugs,” Coulter posted on Twitter in announcing that she had abandoned efforts to find a campus venue where she could speak Thursday.
“It’s sickening when a radical thuggish institution like Berkeley can so easily snuff out the cherished American right to free speech,” she added.
Berkeley administrators and police countered that their first concern was safety in the face of increasingly violent demonstrations at the famously liberal university.
Coulter had been invited by two student groups to speak on immigration policy as a counterpoint to a Clinton administration advisor. The address became a campus-freedoms rallying point for conservative groups but administrators first canceled Coulter’s visit, then rescheduled it to an unpopular date.
But even without a high-profile headliner such as Coulter, UC Berkeley Police Capt. Alex Yao said, authorities expect extremists to arrive on campus “to have violence against each other.” He said students should expect a heavy police presence Thursday and “a very, very low tolerance of violence.”
Among those contemplating their own Berkeley events on Thursday were Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes and Canadian alt-right blogger Lauren Southern, according to statements Southern made.
Administrators cited unspecified threats of violence in limiting Coulter to a daytime engagement off the main campus. The Berkeley campus and adjacent downtown has been the scene of three violent clashes since February between alt-right demonstrators and white nationalists on one side and anti-fascist and anarchist groups on the other.
This is shameful and exposes liberals for the anti democratic beings they have become.