Free Republic

Berkeley’s campus is controlled by the most radical elements of the Left who strive to shut down all dissenters, even those with whom they agree on most issues. One either has to endorse the most outlandish positions on race, sex, gender, and class, or face an unparalleled bevy of public attacks. This sort of conformist thought-control is what veterans and survivors of UC Berkeley call the “Berkeley bubble,” the strictly-enforced far-left orthodoxy that exists on campus....Simply put, speaking at UC Berkeley is a minefield for any liberal politician or celebrity who wants to avoid controversy. Until university administrators, faculty, and...

A recent poll by the University of California Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) has shown that Republican James Bradley, an outsider to the political world, is almost tied with Democrat State Sen. Kevin de Leon in the race for the U.S. Senate in California in the 2018 midterm election. Compared to two years ago, more Americans today may believe that electing a political outsider to a public office is not a bad idea. The job approval rating for President Donald Trump, who had never been part of any political establishment before he was elected, recently hit 51 percent, according...

A California judge declined to drop felony charges against a middle school teacher-turned-Antifa leader and two other activists despite lawyers claiming the charges were part of a “witch hunt” against the educator. Yvette Felarca, 47, the leader and spokesperson for the anti-fascist group By Any Means Necessary and a middle school teacher in Berkeley, was accused of inciting and participating in a riot in 2016 between white nationalist groups and counter-protesters. The skirmish broke out at the state Capitol in June 2016 when more than 300 counter-protesters confronted about 30 members of the Traditionalist Worker Party, which has been called...

A University of California, Berkeley task force is blaming conservative students for destructive protests on campus, saying that hosting conservative speakers was “likely to incite a violent reaction.” The report was filed on April 10 by a Commission on Free Speech that Chancellor Carol Christ created last October to “analyze events featuring external speakers” on campus in the wake of a series of disruptive protests against planned appearances by speakers such as Ben Shapiro, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Ann Coulter.

A long-awaited report on free speech protections at the University of California, Berkeley, blames “hard to defend” conservative speakers for inciting left-wing students to violence. A commission of Berkeley faculty, students formed in 2017 after violent and costly student protests called its commitment to free speech into question. Their months long study of the issue resulted in the conclusion that “ultra-conservative rhetoric” by the likes of Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter only exists to “advance a facile narrative that universities are not tolerant of conservative speech.” “Contrary to a currently popular narrative, Berkeley remains a tolerant campus,” the report says,...

I did it. I descended into the heart of liberal darkness, Berkeley, California and attended the Tenth International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses. As you may have guessed, I’m a climate change skeptic. And while this conference was interesting and gratifying for a number of reasons, it did not change my view as a climate change skeptic, but in fact, reinforced it. My own presentation (for solving climate change while making a huge profit – i.e., the Republican way) was not widely attended, but the conversation was lively and I gained some allies. Without further ado here are...

As BART’s ridership surged three years ago, along with the number of homeless people lingering inside its downtown San Francisco stations, the transit system doubled down on custodial work — and some of its janitors started cleaning up paywise. One system service worker, BART’s title for janitors, made a little more than $271,000 in 2015, with $162,050 of that in overtime. A year later, two other BART janitors joined him in collecting more than $100,000 in overtime pay in a year. Three years later — after the tale of the high-earning BART janitor became legend and the transit system, and...

A University of California, Berkeley Student Senator proposed that all student government funding for the Berkeley College Republicans be reallocated to the Black Student Union. According to The Daily Californian, Senator Rizza Estacio made an amendment to the proposed budget allocations to student organizations and university groups which would eliminate the $1,000 funding for the BCR and add it to the budget for the BSU. Estacio said that her reasoning for the reallocation is because the BCRs “have violated a lot of, like, lead center rules during like free speech week,” adding that because of this, the organization does not...

Young America's Foundation scored a legal victory against UC-Berkeley this week after a judge in San Francisco refused to dismiss the organization's lawsuit against the university for infringing on the First Amendment rights of conservative students and speakers on campus. “Young America’s Foundation looks forward to moving on to the merits of this case and vigorously defending our claims at trial. This ruling allowing YAF’s critical First Amendment case to move forward is a win for conservatives and free speech, and it shows that Judge Chesney believes there is significant evidence of Berkeley’s work to suppress conservative speech," Young America’s...

The candidate for a seat in the UC Berkeley student Senate promised safe spaces for squirrels, better access to acorns and support groups for those experiencing habitat loss. His name was Furry Boi, he campaigned in a squirrel suit and he attracted immediate attention. "omg i love him he's so cute," Iris Melody Xu, a UC Berkeley student, wrote on Furry Boi's Facebook page. "Finally, a candidate I can get behind," someone else wrote. But when the character that sophomore Stephen Boyle had created as a joke actually won one of the Associated Students of the University of California's 20...

(Reuters) - A federal judge rejected the University of California at Berkeley's bid to dismiss a lawsuit claiming it discriminated against conservative speakers like Ann Coulter by imposing unreasonable restrictions and fees on their appearances. In a decision late Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney in San Francisco said two conservative groups could pursue claims that the school applied its "high-profile speaker" and "major events" policies in a manner that unfairly suppressed conservative speech. But the judge also said she was "unpersuaded" by claims that the school engaged in intentional viewpoint discrimination, and said the plaintiffs could not seek punitive...

The sky-high rent and cost of living that we've come to expect from the Bay Area might have finally taken their toll on a large proportion of residents. A huge wave of people are considering more affordable cities outside of the tech capital of the world, and they're taking their startups — and investors — with them, as Kevin Roose reported in The New York Times. San Francisco lost more residents than any other city in the country in the last quarter of 2017, according to data from real estate website Redfin, which sampled a million users. The data factored...

Last week, the Los Angeles Times published a feature piece on UC-Berkeley student Ismael Chamu, that highlighted the struggles he and his family face on a daily basis. The only problem? The article never mentioned that Chamu is a radical, violent, left-wing extremist – with ties to Antifa. Chamu was charged with felony vandalism in 2017, after allegedly spray-painting graffiti around his campus. These graffiti messages included, “F--- White People,” “F--- the police,” “Kill Cops,” “Eat the Rich,” and more. According to Berkeleyside, dozens of tires were slashed as well, and when police approached Chamu he was hiding a knife....

Former Diablo Valley College adjunct professor Eric Clanton’s pretrial was moved after initially being set for Feb. 22. Clanton was arrested in May 2017 for the April 2017 protests in Berkeley where an individual wearing a mask assaulted attendees of the “Patriot Rally” with a bike lock. (snip) The pretrial has been moved to April 5 at 9 a.m. at the René C. Davidson Courthouse in Oakland.

California’s war on the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution took a dramatic new step on Tuesday, as the city of Berkeley declared itself a “sanctuary city” for marijuana-related crimes. The San Francisco Chronicle reports: The Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to become a sanctuary city for legal adult-use marijuana, prohibiting city agencies and employees from turning over information on legal cannabis activities and assisting in enforcing federal marijuana laws. “I believe we can balance public safety and resisting the Trump administration,” Mayor Jesse Arreguin. “Berkeley is a sanctuary for people in our community.” The measure doesn’t prevent the...

San Francisco supervisors Tuesday voted 10-1 to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples' Day despite a last-minute effort to delay the vote in response to objections from some members of the city's Italian-American community. Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who represents the North Beach neighborhood, where the annual parade on Columbus Day has long since been renamed as the Italian Heritage parade, asked the board to postpone a vote on the resolution after receiving a large number of emails from constituents. "I would like some time to figure out a path forward that works for our indigenous native peoples as well as...

The UC Berkeley administration’s reaction to undocumented junior Luis Mora’s detainment by Border Patrol proves that the campus doesn’t give undocumented students the support they need. Within days of Mora’s detainment on Dec. 30 in San Diego, campus immigrant rights organization Rising Immigrant Scholars through Education, or RISE at Berkeley, launched a massive social media campaign to call for Mora’s release. Now is the time for public action, and the UC Berkeley administration — which has repeatedly expressed support for the undocumented community — should proudly lead the charge. Mora’s detainment isn’t an isolated incident; under President Donald Trump’s administration,...

Humanities professors say organization evading moral, professional duties Dozens of humanities scholars cancelled their membership with their field's leading professional academic organization ahead of its annual convention, in retaliation for the group refusing to impose boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. The defecting professors wrote to the Modern Language Association—published in the days leading up to the conference being held this week in New York City—that they will not be renewing their membership, due to the organization "disgracefully" voting in June against BDS and in favor of a statement denouncing academic boycotts. Timothy Reiss, a professor emeritus of comparative literature...

The court determined that Antifa leader Yvette Felarca's legal claim "was not brought in good faith." Hayward, CA – Antifa leader and middle school teacher Yvette Felarca was ordered to pay over $11,000 in damages to former Berkeley College Republicans President Troy Worden on Thursday, following an Alameda County Superior Court ruling. Felarca, a national organizer for antifa-aligned group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), filed a civil harassment restraining order against Worden in September, 2017, and alleged that he stalked her by appearing at BAMN events, the San Francisco Gate reported. BAMN also led protests against conservative speakers who came...

The Pacifica Foundation, a Berkeley-based community radio network that includes the progressive radio station KPFA, is in financial crisis because of mounting debt — and is now teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Pacifica, a nonprofit founded in 1946 by conscientious objectors from World War II, is the mother of America’s alternative radio, pioneering decades of left-leaning public affairs programs and community-based music.