Thread by @donmoyn

Two guys, neither of whom are affiliated with Berkeley got into an altercation on its campus.
One punched the other and fled. Berkeley police tracked down the perpetrator and arrested him.
Thats the basis for Trump calling for an executive order to govern campus speech. 1/

Trump Brough the victim, Hayden Williams, onstage at CPAC and urged him to sue Berkeley.
Williams works for a conservative org that partners with Turning Point. He was allowed on campus & campus police captured his assailant. So what exactly has Berkeley done wrong here? 2/

Berkeley campus extends 1,200 acres and includes 50K residents, not including those who are not affiliated with the university who want to make it a battleground. It has been targeted both by conservative provocateurs and Antifa opposition. It cannot stop every bad interaction 3/

Berkeley spent $4M last year on security so the likes of Charlie Kirk could share their wisdom. As a reminder, this is a public institution. $4M is a lot of student scholarships.
If the Trump admin wants to facilitate freedom of speech, let them reimburse those costs. 4/

You can read more about what happened from police reports of the event, which are featured here: news.berkeley.edu/2019/03/02/sta…
and from @ScottJaschik @insidehighered here: insidehighered.com/news/2019/03/0… 5/

Now, if Berkeley officials had urged people "knock the crap out of him...I will pay your legal fees" then perhaps they could be deemed liable for encouraging violence.
Instead, they've demonstrated a far higher commitment to ensuring free speech than the President ever has. 6/

The first amendment and a large body of case-law provides the strongest free speech protections on *public universities* that possibly any other place in society.

This is about imposing political - and even military - control on what are seen as liberal institutions. 7/