Will UCLA and the other far-left indoctrination centers that call themselves our nation’s universities ever learn? Will they ever recall that Americans, including American students, have First Amendment rights? Will they ever admit that even those who dissent from the left’s agenda have a right to be heard and that university administrators, of all people, should respect that right?
Given the left’s consistent taste for authoritarianism, that’s unlikely, and UCLA has just shown this yet again. The intrepid warriors of the Young America’s Foundation (YAF), however, are not letting them get away with it.
Two weeks ago, I wrote an article about how YAF had filed suit against UCLA for blocking a lecture I was scheduled to give there on May 15, 2024, entitled “Everything You Know About Palestine Is Wrong.” UCLA officials canceled the event at the last minute and then disingenuously claimed that it had gone on as planned, as they allowed me to come onto campus (under heavy police guard) and speak for a few minutes with the courageous members of the YAF chapter.
That was not what had been agreed upon: I had been scheduled to give an address that was to have been open to the entire student body, and UCLA's top dogs shut that down. They claimed security concerns, and certainly, the pro-Hamas crowd that was marching through campus would have torn me limb from limb if it had gotten half a chance. To cancel the event, however, was to submit to the heckler’s veto, as well as to reinforce the political proclivities of the UCLA administration and faculty.
That’s why YAF thus filed suit. Mountain States Legal Foundation Senior Counsel James Kerwin explained: “UCLA pretends it cares about freedom of expression, but when push comes to shove, it only allows one side to have its say. That is a violation of the First Amendment. This lawsuit will force UCLA to do what it should have done long ago: treat all viewpoints fairly and stop the campus shout-down mobs.” Yes. And one would think that with that suit in progress, UCLA would think twice about restricting the speech of patriotic students again. You would think wrong.
The UCLA YAF chapter, undaunted by its experience with my event being shut down, is bringing Ben Shapiro to campus on Monday, Oct. 21. What do you think are the chances that Ben will be allowed to speak? YAF’s Chief Communications Officer Spencer Brown stated that UCLA is “levying unreasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on students in a continuation of last semester’s unconstitutional behavior.”
YAF’s lawyers aren’t standing for it. They fired off a letter to UCLA officials, stating that “while appearing to approve” the Shapiro event, UCLA “has created conditions that will seriously undermine its effectiveness.” YAF requested “immediate permission to adjust the day-of-event procedures to deal with this issue and to reasonably ensure a successful event.” This is because UCLA is distributing 1,200 free tickets for a venue with 1,200 seats. That might seem reasonable at first glance, but actually, many people who get a free ticket for an event don’t end up showing up.
Also, the YAF lawyers’ letter points out that “Mr. Shapiro has been targeted in the past by left-wing objectors to his point of view with a strategy under which objectors rush to reserve as many free tickets as they can, with no intention to use them on the day of the event, in a conscious effort to undermine Mr. Shapiro. UCLA has no way of knowing how many of the 1,200 tickets currently available will be taken in bad faith by objectors who lack any intention to show up on October 21, 2024. Additionally, YAF has seen left-wing activists stage walkouts several minutes into an event, leaving large blocks of seats empty.”
That happened to me at Stanford University; it’s a tried-and-true leftist tactic. The clear goal of UCLA top dogs is that “Mr. Shapiro will speak to a room with hundreds of empty seats, while many hopeful attendees are denied entry.”
Related: Palestinian Thugs at UCLA Shut Down My Scheduled Speech. Now, YAF Is Suing.
Brown pointed out that “UCLA has shown itself willing to unlawfully discriminate against conservative and pro-Israel expression already, actions for which Young America’s Foundation has sued UCLA.” And here we are again. As leftists are fond of saying, fascists gonna fash. Leftists hate the freedom of speech and the airing of opposing viewpoints, and they don’t hesitate to quash them whenever they can.
YAF might have to file quite a few more lawsuits before UCLA stops doing this. If, however, America is to survive as a free society, this battle must be fought and won, and the left’s stranglehold on American universities broken. YAF is doing the hard work in the trenches now, for which we should all be grateful.
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