AK is on target.
History suggests that freedom is not the natural order. Are the ninnies of the world in the process of proving it? Are you?
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Sixty years ago this month, the Free Speech Movement was born at the University of California, Berkeley. How is that working out?
In mid-September 1964, Berkeley’s dean of students banned tables and political activity along the Bancroft strip, a 26-foot stretch of university-owned sidewalk near Telegraph Avenue down from Sproul Plaza. I walked around the area last week and found, almost paradoxically, a capitalist BMO Bank, a Marxist-glorifying César Chávez Student Center and a techno-optimist Open Computing Facility.
Berkeley’s 1964 students protested the table ban. On Sept. 30, five students were cited. More than 400 insisted that they were also responsible and should all be cited too. They then staged their first sit-in inside Sproul Hall, Berkeley’s administration building. The next day, tables were set up outside Sproul Hall. The police were called and arrested Jack Weinberg. Some 200 students surrounded the police car. Speeches began as thousands assembled. Mario Savio emerged as a Free Speech Movement leader.
With the cop car still surrounded by late afternoon on Oct. 2, 500 police officers were on hand at the university. A six-point agreement was reached with the university president, and the protests ended. As is typical of universities, committees were formed. A six-week ban on tables was instituted and Mario Savio and others were suspended. But by mid-November, the tables were back, and 3,000 students marched around campus.
On Nov. 23, 300 students staged another sit-in inside Sproul Hall. By Dec. 2, 1,000 students were inside the building. Sit-ins aren’t free speech—they are unlawful and can lead to violence. Mario Savio gave his famous “Put your bodies upon the gears” speech on the steps of Sproul Hall. Gov. Edmund Brown then sent 635 police officers, who arrested 814 students. More committees, a five-point proposal, and a convocation tried to calm things down. In January, and three months too late, an acting chancellor designated Sproul Hall’s steps an open-discussion area that allowed political tables.
Sadly, campus free speech has been lost since 1964. Savio’s speech has been an inspiration for civil disobedience, most recently at Columbia and elsewhere this spring. Even peaceful protests these days are now more about what you can’t say. What started as safe spaces and trigger warnings are now almost always one-way actions, cancellations and censorship of ideas progressives don’t like.
Especially at Berkeley. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression recently posted their 2025 College Free Speech Rankings of 251 colleges. The University of Virginia is ranked No. 1 for free speech. Berkeley is 225. New York University, Columbia and Harvard are last. Great company.
In 2017, Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos and David Horowitz had events canceled at Berkeley for “security concerns.” This February, a Berkeley pro-Israel event was postponed by protesters who broke into a building. Last week a member of Israel’s Knesset was harassed off stage at Berkeley by both left-wing Israeli and anti-Israel protesters. Some free-speech anniversary. Witness the naked hypocrisy: Free speech for me but not for thee.
Progressives love to censor. In 2019 Kamala Harris told CNN that Facebook and Twitter “are directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation. And that has to stop.” In August former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a Berkeley professor emeritus, wrote: “Regulators around the world should threaten [Elon] Musk with arrest if he doesn’t stop disseminating lies and hate on X.” State Department employees were urged not to use “gendered terms,” such as “manpower,” “you guys” and even “mother/father” and “husband/wife.” Gov. Tim Walz told MSNBC in 2022, “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech and especially around our democracy.” Uh, except for the First Amendment.
This has empowered Brazil to ban Twitter, triggering protests. Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested near Paris. The George Soros-funded, U.K.-based Global Disinformation Index is used to censor others. Hong Kong has arrested editors and publisher Jimmy Lai. The U.K. is arresting citizens over social-media posts. Madness! It’s time for the U.S., left and right, to protect free speech as an absolute, a modern Free Speech Movement, and set an example for the rest of the world.
Ironically, an “invisible sculpture” to free speech at Berkeley was proposed in 1989. Administrators agreed to it, so long as—you can’t make this stuff up—the Free Speech Movement wasn’t mentioned in the press release. It’s a patch of soil in Sproul Plaza surrounded by a granite circle inscribed: “This soil and the airspace extending above it shall not be a part of any nation and shall not be subject to any entity’s jurisdiction.” I stood inside the invisible cylinder and shouted the first subversive thing that came to mind: “master bedroom.” Not my proudest moment. But I wasn’t thunderstruck. No censorship there, unlike, it seems, everywhere else these days.
Sixty years ago this month, the Free Speech Movement was born at the University of California, Berkeley. How is that working out?
In mid-September 1964, Berkeley’s dean of students banned tables and political activity along the Bancroft strip, a 26-foot stretch of university-owned sidewalk near Telegraph Avenue down from Sproul Plaza. I walked around the area last week and found, almost paradoxically, a capitalist BMO Bank, a Marxist-glorifying César Chávez Student Center and a techno-optimist Open Computing Facility.
Berkeley’s 1964 students protested the table ban. On Sept. 30, five students were cited. More than 400 insisted that they were also responsible and should all be cited too. They then staged their first sit-in inside Sproul Hall, Berkeley’s administration building. The next day, tables were set up outside Sproul Hall. The police were called and arrested Jack Weinberg. Some 200 students surrounded the police car. Speeches began as thousands assembled. Mario Savio emerged as a Free Speech Movement leader.
With the cop car still surrounded by late afternoon on Oct. 2, 500 police officers were on hand at the university. A six-point agreement was reached with the university president, and the protests ended. As is typical of universities, committees were formed. A six-week ban on tables was instituted and Mario Savio and others were suspended. But by mid-November, the tables were back, and 3,000 students marched around campus.
On Nov. 23, 300 students staged another sit-in inside Sproul Hall. By Dec. 2, 1,000 students were inside the building. Sit-ins aren’t free speech—they are unlawful and can lead to violence. Mario Savio gave his famous “Put your bodies upon the gears” speech on the steps of Sproul Hall. Gov. Edmund Brown then sent 635 police officers, who arrested 814 students. More committees, a five-point proposal, and a convocation tried to calm things down. In January, and three months too late, an acting chancellor designated Sproul Hall’s steps an open-discussion area that allowed political tables.
Sadly, campus free speech has been lost since 1964. Savio’s speech has been an inspiration for civil disobedience, most recently at Columbia and elsewhere this spring. Even peaceful protests these days are now more about what you can’t say. What started as safe spaces and trigger warnings are now almost always one-way actions, cancellations and censorship of ideas progressives don’t like.
Especially at Berkeley. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression recently posted their 2025 College Free Speech Rankings of 251 colleges. The University of Virginia is ranked No. 1 for free speech. Berkeley is 225. New York University, Columbia and Harvard are last. Great company.
In 2017, Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos and David Horowitz had events canceled at Berkeley for “security concerns.” This February, a Berkeley pro-Israel event was postponed by protesters who broke into a building. Last week a member of Israel’s Knesset was harassed off stage at Berkeley by both left-wing Israeli and anti-Israel protesters. Some free-speech anniversary. Witness the naked hypocrisy: Free speech for me but not for thee.
Progressives love to censor. In 2019 Kamala Harris told CNN that Facebook and Twitter “are directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation. And that has to stop.” In August former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a Berkeley professor emeritus, wrote: “Regulators around the world should threaten [Elon] Musk with arrest if he doesn’t stop disseminating lies and hate on X.” State Department employees were urged not to use “gendered terms,” such as “manpower,” “you guys” and even “mother/father” and “husband/wife.” Gov. Tim Walz told MSNBC in 2022, “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech and especially around our democracy.” Uh, except for the First Amendment.
This has empowered Brazil to ban Twitter, triggering protests. Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested near Paris. The George Soros-funded, U.K.-based Global Disinformation Index is used to censor others. Hong Kong has arrested editors and publisher Jimmy Lai. The U.K. is arresting citizens over social-media posts. Madness! It’s time for the U.S., left and right, to protect free speech as an absolute, a modern Free Speech Movement, and set an example for the rest of the world.
Ironically, an “invisible sculpture” to free speech at Berkeley was proposed in 1989. Administrators agreed to it, so long as—you can’t make this stuff up—the Free Speech Movement wasn’t mentioned in the press release. It’s a patch of soil in Sproul Plaza surrounded by a granite circle inscribed: “This soil and the airspace extending above it shall not be a part of any nation and shall not be subject to any entity’s jurisdiction.” I stood inside the invisible cylinder and shouted the first subversive thing that came to mind: “master bedroom.” Not my proudest moment. But I wasn’t thunderstruck. No censorship there, unlike, it seems, everywhere else these days.
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