Public universities do not have the right to restrict student activities based on politics. If a student organization is able to host one kind of political speaker, they should be able to host any kind of political speaker. Private universities can do whatever they want for all I care, but it's certainly against the spirit of free thought and scholasticism to intentionally discriminate based on politics.
There's also a distinction between the legal notion of free speech and the moral notion of free speech. The moral notion of free speech is that A) you shouldn't use violence to suppress people's ideas and B) if your ideas are so hot, you should be able to defend them instead of trying to deplatform competing ideas.
> The only potential free speech argument here is if somebody were to tell Berkeley that they had to allow certain speakers, then the university's free speech would be impinged.
Government agencies and organizations which choose to receive tax funding give up certain rights, among those the ability to discriminate in any capacity based on politics, religion, etc. If a Berkeley student group wanted to host a Satanist Nazi who endorsed eating babies, Berkeley would have no grounds to prevent them from doing so.
There's also a distinction between the legal notion of free speech and the moral notion of free speech. The moral notion of free speech is that A) you shouldn't use violence to suppress people's ideas and B) if your ideas are so hot, you should be able to defend them instead of trying to deplatform competing ideas.
> The only potential free speech argument here is if somebody were to tell Berkeley that they had to allow certain speakers, then the university's free speech would be impinged.
Government agencies and organizations which choose to receive tax funding give up certain rights, among those the ability to discriminate in any capacity based on politics, religion, etc. If a Berkeley student group wanted to host a Satanist Nazi who endorsed eating babies, Berkeley would have no grounds to prevent them from doing so.