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NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Conservative speaker banned by Calif. university



Good Old YAF

  • Nice to see the Young American for Freedom are still making commies squirm. I was a YAF member at Cal State way back in the last century when Ronald Reagan was governor.


(Gateway Pundit)  -  California State University officials charged Young Americans for Freedom with extraordinary security fees after it was announced conservative Ben Shapiro would be speaking on campus.

University officials then cancelled the YAF event because of their disagreement with Shapiro’s political slant.

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing the conservative group on campus.
Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter Monday on behalf of a student group to California State University, Los Angeles, for charging the group unconstitutional fees in order to exercise its freedom of speech. The university president responded immediately by cancelling the event, having “decided that it will be best” to include the speaker in a “more inclusive event” featuring “a group of speakers with differing viewpoints on diversity.” The student organization, Young Americans for Freedom, is now considering a lawsuit against the university.
University officials charged YAF $621.50 for security officers because it deemed an event that the group is sponsoring “controversial.” The university has broad guidelines for such a designation and leaves it to the whim of officials, a practice that the U.S. Supreme Court has found to be unconstitutional in other cases. After the university received the ADF letter explaining this, CSU–Los Angeles President William Covino sent an e-mail to the student group to inform them that its event has been cancelled.
“Public universities should encourage, not stifle, the free exchange of ideas,” said ADF Senior Counsel David Hacker. “YAF has every bit as much right to hold its event as any other student group does, and the university can’t stop that because it prefers to water down the speaker’s message with other viewpoints that officials find more palatable to their own political views. The courts have made it clear that university officials cannot deem an event ‘controversial’ and then weigh down students with burdensome fees to engage in constitutionally protected free speech just because some people consider it controversial, but it’s even worse to take that a step further and try to silence the speech altogether.”
YAF is a chapter affiliate of Young America’s Foundation and a registered student organization at the university. YAF followed the university’s policies and procedures for planning an event Thursday in the U-SU Theatre on campus with conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro. YAF has been promoting it through social media and fliers for several weeks.
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