PROTECTION FOR SNOWFLAKES

I don’t even begin to know how to describe this adequately.

From James Barrett’s astonishing article at dailywire.com:’

In what is a truly stunning response to the appearance of a single speaker who simply espouses mainstream conservative views, the University of California Berkeley announced on Thursday the security measures it is putting in place for Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro’s speech on September 14 (tickets available here). The extensive list of extreme measures the university feels it must enact just to ensure that violence does not break out from the social justice and Antifa crowd is yet more evidence of how severe the left’s war on free speech on campuses has become.

In a campus-wide email on Thursday, Berkeley’s Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Paul Alivisatos detailed the steps the university is taking in order to try to keep things on the campus from devolving into chaos because a conservative speaker is speaking to to a few hundred students for a couple of hours in an auditorium. Repeatedly citing the university’s supposed “commitment to free speech” as well as its “Principles of Community, including respect for the dignity of all members of our UC Berkeley community,” Provost Alivisatos explains that the university has to take extraordinary security steps because of the “unusual challenges” posed by Shapiro’s presence on campus.

“Our commitment to free speech, as well as to the law, mandates that the students who invited Shapiro be able to host their event for those who wish to hear him speak,” the provost explains. “Our commitment to the principles of community mandates that all students, faculty, and staff be able to be present on campus, engaging in their regular academic activities without fear. Achieving this poses unusual challenges for us; this memo lays out the arrangements that we are putting in place.”

Those “arrangements” to meet the “unusual challenges” include 1) shutting down multiple buildings and parking lots to create a “closed perimeter” around Zellerbach Hall, where Shapiro is speaking; 2) providing “alternative options” for faculty, staff and students so they can try to engage “in their regular academic activities without fear” of violence erupting; 3) imposing special restrictions on tickets and IDs; and 4) offering “support and counseling services for faculty, staff and students.”

 Let me remind you once more:  this is the reaction to nothing more than a political conservative speaking on campus.  That’s it.

And if you doubt me; if you (understandably) think it has to be something more, please use the link I’ve provided above and read the full text of Chancellor Alivisatos’ email.  See for yourself.

I wonder if Mr. Alivisatos, or any of the other powers that be at Berkeley, ever consider the possibility that the problem is not the existence of political conservatives, but that the school is breeding a bunch of intolerant, pathetic little snowflakes, who have been programmed to be devastated by the mere appearance of someone who thinks differently than they have been taught everyone is supposed to think.

Based on that email, along with what has happened every other time a conservative shows up at Berkeley, I doubt it.