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aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

Almost before it began, the alt-right "Free Speech Week" at the University of California, Berkeley, is over.

From the Mother Jones [motherjones.com]:

To look across UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza as Milo Yiannoloupos kicked off his much hyped “Free Speech Week” on Sunday was to see a vast expanse of mostly empty concrete, and in the distance, a small gaggle of Milo devotees at the plaza’s northern edge. They were waving signs—“Feminism is cancer,” “Dangerous Faggot [heart],” “Milo is Love, Milo Is Life, Milo is Liberty.” They, presumably, were making a lot of noise, but from a few hundred feet out, you’d barely notice them if you weren’t looking for them.

Something of a letdown, people were expecting at the very least for something large to be set on fire. But it does seem that Milo has achieved at least two of his goals: One: to be prevented from speaking on the Berkeley campus, at least in an semi-official, invited capacity.

Yiannoloupos would later lament the “hundreds” of fans he said the university prevented from entering, but the reality was that he came and went in less than a half hour, never really giving his own fans—or even his detractors who often fuel the clashes on which he thrives—a chance to join the charade. “It’s unclear to us why Mr. Yiannopoulos decided to start speaking when he did, and why he decided to end when he did—people were still coming in from the enclosed area,” said Dan Mogulof, UC Berkeley’s spokesman at a press conference later that day.

And secondly, to cause the University to spend tons of money on preparation and security for an event what never really intended to happen.

It was “probably the most expensive photo op in the university’s history,” said Mogulof. The unofficial estimate from the university on Sunday was that it cost the university approximately $800,000 and drew a total crowd of 700 to 800 people who mostly remained outside the inner Sproul Plaza barricades.

More details, to be sure, in the source article. But imagine, for $800K, you could hire at least 15-20 top level faculty, or one administrator! Milo has surely hurt the UC System very badly.

Also reported at:
  Al Jazeera [aljazeera.com]
LA Times [latimes.com]
Fox News [foxnews.com]

[Submitter aside: I have it on good sources that TMB, VLM, and jmorris were also slated to be speakers at this alt-right rally, but the "organizers" (to use the term loosely) forgot to inform them, so they did not appear. ]

Original Submission