The Speech I Couldn’t Give at Berkeley Free Speech Week

Lisa De Pasquale:

Today I was scheduled to speak at “Feminism Awareness Day” during Free Speech Week at UC-Berkeley. I am extremely thankful to Milo Yiannopoulos for inviting me to debut my new book, The Social Justice Warrior Handbook. I’m also thankful to Milo for taking the fight for free speech to ground zero — college campuses. In a recent radio interview, an NPR host asked him why he doesn’t just rent a theater rather than deal with college campus rules. Milo responded by asking why conservatives should relinquish participation in an arena that should be open to all views.

Unfortunately, events were canceled because of coordinated efforts by the school administration, leftist media, and leftist groups from across the country. Within hours of being included on a leaked list of invited (not scheduled) speakers, I heard from reporters with information they wanted confirmed or denied in order to catch the organizers in some sort of deceit. They went down the line speaker by speaker in order to discredit and disrupt the event. While I’m disappointed students at Berkeley won’t be able to hear from many of the invited speakers, I’m not surprised.