Conservatism in the People’s Republic of Berkeley

For all of the talk about violence and threats against minorities on college campuses, there is little recognition of one group regularly singled out for harassment and intimidation: campus conservatives.

I have been harassed, stalked, chased, punched, and spat on during my time at UC Berkeley, and in early 2017, I was chased by a mob of masked, black-clad thugs. These thugs, members of a fringe political faction, threw bricks at police officers, launched Molotov cocktails, set fires, beat innocent bystanders, and cut a wide swath of destruction through the downtown area of an entire city.

This was not an outbreak of sectarian violence in a developing nation. This occurred here in the United States, on the campus of UC Berkeley, once home of the Free Speech Movement. The thugs who chased me were far-left anarchists styling themselves as “Antifa” (short for “anti-fascist”). They were responding to a planned talk by Milo Yiannopoulos, which administrators administrators canceled for the safety of the speaker and the attendees. Police made only one arrest that night.

I was 20 years old at the time, a junior, and a member of the Berkeley College Republicans (BCR). Although I had expected a strong reaction from fellow Berkeley students for hosting a conservative speaker, I had never in my worst nightmares expected to have to run for my life from a mob determined to shut me down, in their own words, “By Any Means Necessary.”

By the next day, we were international news. But over the next few days and weeks, I watched as well-regarded voices in the political realm rose in condemnation, not of the violent acts of Antifa, but of us, the Berkeley College Republicans.