UC Berkeley Far-Right ‘Free Speech Week’ Officially Canceled, Yiannopoulus Plans ‘Free Speech March’

“It’s Time to Reclaim Free Speech at UC Berkeley” 

Representatives of the Berkeley Patriot student organization planning a far-right “Free Speech Week” at the University of California at Berkeley announced Saturday that the event has been canceled, one day before it was scheduled to begin.

“The plans had been closely watched because controversial speaker, writer Milo Yiannopoulos, had been shut down by violent protests in February and had vowed to come back,” the Washington Post reported.

The outlet further noted that since then, the school had faced “continuing fights over free speech and hate speech,” with “bloody clashes between extremists on the far left and the far right.”

As NPR reported:

Steve Bannon, former adviser to President Trump, and conservative commentator Ann Coulter were reportedly scheduled to speak at this weekend’s event, but their appearances were never confirmed. Coulter had also been scheduled to appear at Berkeley in April, but her speech was abruptly canceled and protests followed.

Controversy has followed Yiannopoulos wherever he’s gone. Just this year, Simon & Schuster canceled the former Breitbart editor’s controversial $250,000 book deal. (Not for his support of white supremacy, but for his defense of statutory rape.) Just prior, he lost a speaking invitation at CPAC, the annual conservative event.

With the event canceled, Yiannopoulos announced to his supporters that he would, in the capacity of a private citizen, march on the campus in the name of free speech. He further called on his supporters to do the same.

“It’s time to reclaim free speech at UC Berkeley and send shockwaves through the American education system to every other college under liberal tyranny,” he wrote. “Conservatives are fighting back. Break the shackles of leftist control over our universities. Shatter their echo chambers. Close down their safe spaces.”

LA Times reporter Javier Panzar shared screenshots of the announcement:

UC Berkeley announced this week that it had spent close to a million dollars on security arrangements for the event.

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