As Twitchy has been reporting, libs are quite angry at HBO host Bill Maher for his recent comments on Islamic extremism, but this controversy just ratcheted up a notch with students at the University of California, Berkeley now petitioning the university to withdraw its invitation for Maher to speak at the its fall commencement ceremony:
https://twitter.com/JeffreyGoldberg/status/527075999478198272
UC Berkeley students say no to "bigot" Bill Maher as commencement speaker http://t.co/xDtQqqxEBl
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) October 28, 2014
More details on the petition from the Daily Californian:
Students spring into opposition after Bill Maher announced as keynote speaker
In response to an announcement last week that comedian Bill Maher would speak at UC Berkeley’s fall commencement, an online petition started circulating Thursday that demanded that the campus rescind its invitation.
The Change.org petition was authored by ASUC Senator Marium Navid, who is backed by the Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian Coalition, or MEMSA, and Khwaja Ahmed, an active MEMSA member. The petition, which urges students to boycott the decision and asks the campus to stop him from speaking, has already gathered more than 1,400 signatures as of Sunday.
Ban Bill!!! And if you think it’s hypocritical for a liberal university to to censor Maher’s speech, you’re wrong, at least according to the petition’s author, Marium Navid:
“It’s not an issue of freedom of speech, it’s a matter of campus climate,” Navid said. “The First Amendment gives him the right to speak his mind, but it doesn’t give him the right to speak at such an elevated platform as the commencement. That’s a privilege his racist and bigoted remarks don’t give him.”
Not free speech? Unbelievable:
Hey Berkeley students, why not prove @billmaher wrong about Islam http://t.co/5sDee8DCmf by politely tolerating what he has to say?
— David Frum (@davidfrum) October 28, 2014
Nah. Banning free speech is more “liberal” we guess.
More reaction:
https://twitter.com/Patriott1775/status/527078905426219008
Would be better to host Maher in a setting where his views are challenged, but not sure about denying speech for the sake of denying speech.
— Ali Gharib (@Ali_Gharib) October 28, 2014
@MazMHussain What's more, the solution to that problem is more access to speech for Maher's targets, not less for him.
— Ali Gharib (@Ali_Gharib) October 28, 2014
https://twitter.com/msbizz73/status/527081239564414976
https://twitter.com/JMHarrisonBooks/status/527087802622967808
Let’s end it with this:
https://twitter.com/billiakbar/status/527082410996137984
Well said, and nor should anyone.
Related:
‘I want to set so many things on fire right now’: Bill Maher calls Michael Brown no ‘gentle giant’
Max Fisher, Vox slammed for their ‘straw man’ attack on Bill Maher
Bill Maher ‘nails’ it on liberal Western culture vs. Islamic extremism
Can Bill Maher mock President Obama for saying the Islamic State isn’t Islamic? Yes he can!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member