February 2, 2017

All Hell Breaks Loose at Campus Event for Alt-Right Leader Milo Yiannopoulos

A long night in Berkeley.


Update, 9:36 a.m.: Hours after the protests on Thursday, President Donald Trump threatened to pull federal funds to the University of California-Berkeley.

A planned talk at the University of California-Berkeley by alt-right lightning rod Milo Yiannopoulos has been canceled after protests erupted on campus.

Yiannopoulos is an editor at Breitbart, a far-right online publication, and is a self-professed “mouthpiece of Trump-Pence.” He is in the middle of a campus speaking tour that has attracted intense ire from student groups around the country. Similar protests broke out last month at the University of California-Davis, shutting down his appearance there, and at the University of Washington, where a protester was shot.

An estimated 1,500 protesters descended on UC-Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza for the demonstration. During the evening, windows were smashed at the student union and a portable light pole generator was torched, sending flames into the night sky and setting a nearby tree on fire.

Shortly after 6 p.m., two hours before Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak, university police called off the event.

A statement released by the university said campus police determined the event could no longer take place “amid violence, destruction of property and out of concern for public safety.” It went on to defend the university’s decision to host the event in the first place, arguing that “while Yiannopoulos’ views, tactics and rhetoric are profoundly contrary to our own, we are bound by the Constitution, the law, our values and the campus’s Principles of Community to enable free expression across the full spectrum of opinion and perspective.”

“We came here tonight to help make sure this event did not happen,” said Nick Pardee, 26, protesting with a group from the Party for Socialism and Liberation. “We came here to prevent the hate speech that leads to acts like the shooting in the Quebec mosque the other night.”

One man who wanted to be referred to as “Red” said, “You have to confront fascism and not let it advance or give it a platform. You can’t even allow the platform to spew their bullshit.”

“This should be standard practice,” he added.

Angelie Castenada from Fremont, California, however, paid $5 for the event and said protesters were going against something UC-Berkeley has always stood for. “I’m disappointed, because since the 60’s, UC Berkeley was an arbiter of the free speech movement, and even if it’s a conservative opinion, schools should be allowing speech of all kinds.”

There were lighter moments during the protests, too: Drum circles, dancing, and chants of “Immigrants are welcome here” were all in abundance.

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate