UC Berkeley free speech in spotlight over super-tight security plans

From the San Francisco Chronicle, September 14, 2017

The extra security measures — shutting down five campus buildings and Sproul Plaza three hours before the event, requiring attendees to show identification, and surrounding the area with a massive police presence — may persuade protesters that trying to shut down the event isn’t worth the effort. But it doesn’t make them happy.

“It’s the right of the people to shut down speakers. Exercising disruptive protest is how people often start to pay attention,” said Sunsara Taylor, a co-founder of Refuse Fascism, who is flying out from New York to conduct a “speak-out” against Shapiro at UC Berkeley on Thursday.

Taylor doesn’t see Shapiro as an everyday conservative.

“We are organizing a speak-out against white supremacy, misogyny, xenophobia and fascism,” Taylor said. Referencing the theme of Shapiro’s talk, she said, “the problem is not campus thuggery — it’s intellectual fascist thuggery in the service of the Trump-Pence fascist regime.

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IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY, WE REFUSE TO ACCEPT A FASCIST AMERICA!

NOW IS the TIME WHEN WE MUST RISE UP and ACT to STOP the CONSOLIDATION of TRUMP MAGA FASCISM. For the lives of people here and around the world we must refuse unlawful and inhumane orders… we must fill the streets and town squares in non-violent protest—not stopping until we become millions — not relenting until this regime is no longer able to implement its program or maintain its hold on power.