Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), a conservative student group, settled with the University of California-Berkeley over free speech. The tune of the settlement was $70,000 and the lawsuit centered on the university’s alleged viewpoint discrimination against conservative students and groups on its campus.
The university now has to retract their security fee policy, which was allegedly hiked for conservative speakers, in addition to other concessions such as the tolerance of the “heckler’s veto.” The heckler’s veto is when protesters shout down and shut down events that have conservative speakers. Campus Reform has the story.
The settlement does not put blame on the university, but requires that the university now has to identify all events during the academic year which fall under its “major events policy.” The settlement also includes more transparency of the total amount of fees for events, in addition to reservation requirements and logistics.
The $70,000 amount will pay for litigation and attorney fees for YAF.
The university hosted conservative speaker Ben Shapiro in 2017, which led to local shops closing their doors to avoid possible riots and property destruction. Earlier in 2017, a speech by controversial speaker Milo Yiannopoulos was disrupted by anti-fascist (“Antifa”) protesters, who smashed ATMs and windows.
