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“In America, we do not allow citizens to be attacked by violent thugs and shrug and turn our backs,” posted the assistant attorney general (AAG) for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). “Been there, done that, not on our watch.”
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) and the city of Berkeley itself “should expect some incoming … correspondence … And more,” Harmeet Dhillon added Tuesday.
Attorney General Pam Bondi also posted Tuesday that Antifa “is an existential threat to our nation.”
“The violent riots at UC Berkeley last night are under full investigation by the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force,” she observed. “We will continue to spare no expense unmasking all who commit and orchestrate acts of political violence.”
The attorney general noted President Donald Trump’s recent executive order designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist group.
“[T]he Department of Justice and our law-enforcement partners are dismantling violent networks that seek to intimidate Americans and suppress their free expression and First Amendment rights,” she said.
The DOJ is addressing the violence that broke out near UC Berkeley in advance of a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) event that was to mark the end of the organization’s tour.
The “bloody” riot occurred just two months after TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated at a campus event in Utah. As Fox News reported, video shows “a crowd of agitators gathering around the fight” that broke out.
“Many demonstrators wore keffiyehs and carried signs with left-wing messages,” the report added.
During an interview with CNN today, Dhillon commented on a statement provided to Fox News Digital in which the school condemned the violence and threats to free speech, pledged to cooperate with the federal investigation, but also claimed the TPUSA event remained “uninterrupted,” according to the report.
“[H]alf the people who got tickets to this event couldn’t attend it because of this violence,” Dhillon objected. “That’s not an event going on as per usual. The staff there in the university didn’t allow many people to get through this.”
But the AAG said she’s been down this road before.
“These are the exact shenanigans I sued over when I represented a different organization in 2017 and the university and the state of California had to settle and [wrote] checks over this and agree to never allow this type of violence to disrupt conservative or any group of speakers, and yet, here we are, and they’re doing it, and they’re smiling as if this is nothing,” Dhillon argued, listing several specific issues.
“Antifa is a terrorist organization,” she noted first. “The chapter here is called By Any Means Necessary. I’ve sued them and been involved with them as well.”
“But there’s also – UC Berkeley is legally on notice, based on the prior litigation and the settlement about this exact type of event,” Dhillon continued. “And, third, at the Civil Rights Division, we’re in charge of how the police treat the citizens. And the police in Berkeley seem to think this is kind of a sport or a joke. Equal protection under the Constitution requires that you treat citizens equally, including if you don’t agree with their viewpoints. And so at all three levels and maybe more, we have some serious problems, and we’re going to be deeply engaged in legal action here, I suspect, very soon.”
Dhillon posted a letter to social media she sent Tuesday to UC Berkeley Police Chief Yogananda Pittman regarding the TPUSA violence. In her communication, she asked Pittman “to preserve all records regarding their response to the mob violence at UC Berkeley’s TPUSA event.”
Legal analyst Jonathan Turley, author of the book The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, commented that the notice to Berkeley of the investigation “serves a valuable purpose in warning universities that their actions will be scrutinized in such controversies.”
“Too often, universities allow hecklers to disrupt events, as when Stanford law students stopped Judge Kyle Duncan from speaking at the law school,” he said. “The TPUSA event was long planned, as were the protests. This was not some flash mob but an organized effort to try to cancel the free speech event.”
Without prejudging the outcome of the investigation, Turley said, nevertheless, that an examination of how the school prepared for the event “is an important warning that, for the first time, universities will face inquiries over such breaches or failures in protecting First Amendment activities.”
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