After a spring marked by controversies involving free speech rights, the University of California, Berkeley has blocked a student-led effort to host popular conservative author Ben Shapiro for a campus lecture this fall.
In a statement sent to the Washington Examiner on Wednesday evening, Young America's Foundation announced that administrators informed the Berkeley College Republicans in an email this week they were "unable to identify an available campus venue" to host the lecture, which was slated for Sept. 14. The administrators, identified by YAF as Dean of Students Joseph Greenwell and Student Organization Coordinator Millicent Morris Chaney, claimed the lecture was spiked "despite extensive efforts."
"Ben Shapiro is welcome on our campus, and we are committed to supporting his, and your, rights to free speech," the administrators contended in their message to students, which was sent Tuesday.
YAF is skeptical.
"Berkeley's inability to find a lecture hall more than two months in advance is laughable," the Foundation declared in its statement, noting the university's insistence that it can only host Shapiro "when events are held at a time and location that allow for the provision of any required security measures."
YAF argues these restrictions are no different than those the university levied earlier this year to block a lecture by Ann Coulter; the Foundation was set to sponsor and organize that event along with the Berkeley College Republicans. Both groups are currently suing the school for violating their First Amendment rights.
"An endless stream of liberal speakers continue to be granted opportunities to speak, unobstructed by time, place, or manner restrictions while conservatives are continually treated unequally, and repeatedly relegated to the margins of campus activity," YAF explained in the statement.
