UC Berkeley remains calm even after Coulter's speech cancelled

A crowd gathers around speakers during a rally for free speech Thursday, April 27, 2017, in Berkeley, Calif. Demonstrators gathered near the University of California, Berkeley campus amid a strong police presence and rallied to show support for free speech and condemn the views of Ann Coulter and her supporters.

The excerpt from Ms. Coulter's speech argued against accepting Muslim immigrants and those in need of government assistance.

"This is a university, not a battlefield", Dirks said in the letter.

Efforts by the university to cancel or delay the Coulter event dealt a blow to Berkeley's image as a bastion of tolerance and free speech.

Campus officials said they were continuing to brace for unrest they see as likely on Thursday.

Tensions mounted as the rally ended and a group of at least 100 anti-Trump demonstrators emerged to confront a roughly equal number of pro-Trump, pro-Coulter protesters in front of Berkeley High School, adjacent to the park. "The university has two non-negotiable commitments, one to Free Speech the other to the safety of our campus community".

It was less clear whether and when far-left activists and groups that describe themselves as antifascist might show up to try to shut down the conservatives' rally, as they have done repeatedly in recent weeks.

University officials said organisers erred by inviting Coulter without notifying campus officials in advance, as is required of all student groups, and by failing to submit to a "security assessment" to determine a suitable venue for the event.

Gibson said the group came to Berkeley to protect the speakers.

Canadian contrarians Gavin McInnes and Lauren Southern headlined a free speech rally at MLK Park and read an excerpt from Ms. Coulter's planned speech in her stead.

Coulter blamed the university for the final cancellation, and said on The Sean Hannity Show Wednesday evening that there was "nothing I could do".

"I think we're not doing enough of listening to people and to talking to each other and getting engaged in these uncomfortable conversations... and listen to people who we may think think differently than us but a lot of times we find out they're more like us than we realize", he said.

Protesters from the International Socialist Organization held what they called n "Alt Right Delete" rally with signs reading "Refuse Fascism" and "Fascist free campus".

The bigger the demonstration, the louder the uproar, the more significant the threat of violence, the more proof Coulter has that she's an exciting and risky figure conservatives can use to tweak liberals. Dhillon pointed out that the former president of Mexico, Supreme Court justices, and many others have been allowed to speak at the university, but not Coulter. He said that it is unfortunate that even the threat of possible unrest could lead to the cancellation of a conservative speech there. The notion that administrators can be selective about who can and cannot speak on their campuses-based, in advance, on the content of the presumed speech-and can then make capricious decisions about fees, venues, and scheduling in order to obstruct or degrade the speaker's message is, obviously, something that not only violates nearly every institution's own professed loyalty to academic free speech and unbridled expression, but violates constitutional protections-and is therefore unlawful. They cited "very specific intelligence" of threats that could endanger Coulter and students.

Obviously, he's correct in saying that a movement that depends on violence isn't going to be a success, but I have just one question: How on earth can he consider the people who were fighting on the streets to be "anti-fascists" in the first place?

University officials canceled the speech for fear violence would break out.