Changed my stance on campus speaker bans after that Milo event at Berkeley

I used to think banning controversial speakers was always wrong, no matter what. Then I watched that whole mess at Berkeley back in 2017 where Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak and things went sideways fast. A friend of mine who was a student there told me about the violence between protesters and supporters, with about 6 people getting hurt and property damage costing over $100,000. I mean, I still think most bans are dumb, but that situation made me realize sometimes the risk of actual harm is real. Has anyone else had a moment where they changed their mind about a specific free speech incident?

2 comments

2 Comments

thompson.robin8d ago

Did you ever check what kind of security planning went into an event like that before and after? That's what got me to rethink it too, just realizing how much the setup matters more than the principle.

lisat608d ago

You know what got me thinking about this whole setup thing? The lighting. Nobody ever talks about the lighting at these events. I was at a local outdoor festival last summer where they had those big portable lights on tall poles, and the way they cast shadows made it impossible to see what was happening in certain spots, which is basically a security nightmare. Even with good planning, if you can't see the dark corners between the food trucks and the portable toilets, you're just hoping nothing bad happens there. Security people need to see faces and movement, and bad lighting gives cover for all sorts of trouble. Funny how the simple stuff like where the sun goes down or which way the lights point can make or break the whole thing.