Statement for the BBC on the Disruption of Berkeley Speaker Event on February 1, 2017

If the members of the Berkeley Republican Club believe that their invited speaker has ideas about politics and moral philosophy that are–even potentially–great, I really wish that they would explain why they think they are great. They have a duty to the university to do so. But perhaps they invited their speaker because they hoped he would make African-American, Asian, Hispanic, Muslim, and other minority members of the university feel small and unsafe. If so they need to examine their consciences and pray to their gods, and think hard about whether they understand the purpose of a university.

If you only care about free speech when it’s your freedom to insult people you dislike, then you don’t actually care about free speech. You care about insulting people.