A little while ago, there was a big hubbub about Ben Shapiro speaking at UC Berkeley. They had to hire all sorts of security, and I found it ridiculous. He used to be on a local radio station in Seattle, and he was most definitely not a neo Nazi, white supremacist type. He’s a young, very conservative Jewish guy…irritated me with his neener-neener attitude, about raising kids and is quite a prude. However, if people make a big deal about and classify everyone they disagree with as white supremacists, just to shut people down, it’s a huge mistake. There are some truly evil people out there, trying to collect violent followers, that should be objected to. But you can’t treat everyone the same, it waters down the impact.
Spencer is a white supremacist. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
No disagreement with that!
Spencer’s group had charge of giving out tickets and said it would be first come, first served. They lied. They turned away women, people of color, anyone they didn’t like the look of, and had the police escort them away if they protested.
For any future events, UF should take charge of ticket distribution and prevent this kind of discrimination.
There’s lots of local news coverage up on YouTube.
^^Wow, that’s disgusting.
Would that give some power to other institutions who don’t wish to “host” him for future gatherings? If they can show that they are discriminatory in who they are allowing in?
I don’t understand why institutions are required to let in everybody. How is that required? Or is that just public institutions? Seems that they should be allowed discretion in some way.
It is fine for the renter of the space to let anyone in or keep anyone out that he wants to. You can rent the space for a wedding and invite who you want. The DAR can have a women’s only event, the million man march can hold a pre-march meeting for only men, a religious group only for their members.
May of the public schools in Florida rent out the auditoriums in high schools or the gym in grade school for church meetings every Sunday. They can invite or exclude anyone they want.
Good point, @twoinanddone.
Is discriminating like that even legal?
When Charles Murray came here last week, only students with a valid ID were allowed in. That seems reasonable to me. But blocking out based on sex/gender, race, etc?
UF’s leader spoke out about how he too was surprised at the law. Only public universities must allow anyone in. In some states they need to be invited by a student group or club. I think that was the case at Berkeley. Florida doesn’t even have that provision.
Of course, the law works both ways. Florida can’t stop the hecklers from saying what they want to say either.
UF has a policy of allowing private, non-university related groups to rent out space. They couldn’t change it to stop Spencer by changing that rule, without being pulled into a court case. The policy is in place, as the city of Gainesville is short on these type of facilities, so it’s an important benefit to the city. I think that was the same situation at Auburn University, no one at Auburn sponsored the speech, but they also had a long standing policy to rent out space to private groups.
Spencer had asked UF to distribute the tickets. However, once it became public that groups (like the beer company) where advertising that they would trade tickets for beer, UF decline to handle the tickets. That’s also why tickets where handed out on the day of the event, and not earlier.
It’s a private event, so they could be discriminatory, or simply limit it to members only (all 50 of them that showed up), but that’s not what Spencer wants. He wants protesters, the more the better. He craves attention, and having folks yell at him is a bonus. There really isn’t that many Nazis in the US, and it’s not a growing group. They had about 200 folks at Charlotte for the March, and about 50 folks identified themselves at the UF speech as supports (Spencer asked who supported him, and about 50 raised their hands).
About 1,000 members of law enforcement where involved in security.
Ben Shapiro spoke at UF (invited by a UF student group), last spring, without any issues or additional security. The only “issue” was that UF did limit the number of tickets available.
Clarifying my above question: is it legal for an event that is using public funds (a public U’s funds) allowed to discriminate.
Yes, I understand that private events paid for with private dollars are allowed to keep whomever out, but in a public university like this?
“Is discriminating like that even legal?”
Sure. You can have any private event you want and invite who you want. You can restrict it to a certain religion, race, age for participation.
I’m kind of surprised there were any tickets available, the any students were able to get in to shout at the speakers.
If the intent was to try to bait opponents into doing something stupid (violent), then it is not surprising to offer tickets beyond the committed supporters.
“I just don’t understand why they can’t charge for security. If this were a private event, one would pay for extra security.”
I didn’t understand that either but I found out it’s like that to protect events like the civil rights movement. If cities and universities could charge for security they could price out the speaker and prevent the event because it would encourage the opposition to make threats of violence to drive up security costs.
We should uphold free speech whatever the message may be. Let them talk and it will die out on its own. Sometimes, the left act childish. A bit like Trump, making an issue out of nothing that would have died on its own. As @Gator88NE mentioned, there are not many nazis in the US. There will always be a few holding extreme views. They are not going to change the society for worse.
BTW, Berkeley spent a lot for security when Ben Shapiro visited the campus to keep it under control. With increased security, the event went with minimal incidents. From what I read, there were lengthy civil debates between the speaker and audience holding opposite views during Q&A. They again increased security for free speech week the following week when Milo Yannopoulus was scheduled to speak, except the event fizzled. I am guessing they lost interest when they couldn’t turn the event violent and attract national media attention. I wouldn’t be surprised that would be the last event by extreme rights for a while ending the year long turmoil on campus.
On the other hand, less extreme versions of similar views (e.g. worrying about white people no longer being a majority in the US in a few decades, or that racially segregated neighborhoods are more desirable) are much more widespread.
@Iglooo – white supremacist views are very, very widespread. I don’t understand why you believe they will just “naturally” die out.
No shocked, not even a little bit.