This Thursday, the Berkeley College Republicans are hosting the Conservative Women in Media Panel featuring Antonia Okafor, Kassy Dillon, and Allie Stuckey. Amid rising anticipation for the event, Berkeley leftists’ facade of “tolerance” and “open-mindedness” once again collapsed.
On Tuesday afternoon, I went around campus posting three different posters in several locations that featured Dillon with an Israeli flag, Okafor with a rifle, and a pro-life quote from Stuckey. I particularly targeted the main quad area due to the number of pedestrians, and inside Barrows Hall, which houses the political science department.
I returned to Barrows Hall on Wednesday to find nearly each and every poster torn down and replaced with posters from the International Socialist Organization titled “Stop the Racist Attacks!”
In response, I contacted my ASUC RSO advisor, inquiring if it was Barrows Hall’s policy to clear the whiteboards on Tuesday nights or Wednesday morning. Since many of the same posters were still on the whiteboard, we came to the conclusion that it was unlikely.
I’ve seen this story of blatant intolerance play out time and time again on this hyper-liberal campus, so I continued my investigation on Sproul Plaza, where I posted the other flyers. I found more of the same, but this time they didn’t even bother to make it appear accidental.
As I said on Twitter, “The International Socialist Organization is making it abundantly clear: they do not want pro-life, pro-gun, or pro-Israel women to speak at UC Berkeley.”
It’s difficult for the UC Berkeley Administration to really enforce policies outlining the destruction of flyers because we haven’t been able to catch these individuals in the act. The truth is, the last thing we need is more university regulatory policy and an over-extended bureaucracy getting involved in these matters.
What we need is liberals and conservatives who believe that silencing free speech and destroying others’ property is immoral and to condemn organizations that engage in these sorts of anti-free speech tactics.