Willie Brown: Free Speech Is ‘Being Buried in Berkeley’

Willie Brown, the first African-American mayor of San Francisco, has used his latest San Francisco Chronicle column to condemn liberal intolerance at the University of California, Berkeley towards conservative speakers as the reversal of that campus’s free speech legacy. The context for Brown’s criticism is the decision by UC Berkeley not to allow conservative author Ann Coulter to speak on campus. That decision was reversed, but the university insisted that Coulter speak at a designated date and time, when classes were not in session or when few students were likely to attend, in order to minimize the risk of violent protests. -- More..