Berkeley relents on Ann Coulter appearance, finds ‘protected venue’

Ann Coulter is back in Berkeley.

A day after the University of California cancelled her planned speech over security fears, the school reversed itself and found a “protected venue” for the event.

The university moved the date of the speech from April 27 to May 2, and did not disclose the new location at a Thursday press conference announcing its reversal.

University spokesman Dan Mogulof told reporters that the speech would take a place at a campus site that Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said would be disclosed at a later time.

The university and the city of Berkeley were once the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement but has increasingly become a hotbed of forms of leftist radicalism that deny the legitimacy of disagreement with them and support the use of riots to shut down opponents’ speech.

A full-scale riot broke out last week at an off-campus pro-Trump rally and a planned campus speech by Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos was canceled when fire-wielding rioters tried to break into the building. Miss Coulter’s event already had been the object of threats and calls for “no-platforming,” which had led to Wednesday’s cancellation.

“The concern is really around student safety and security,” Mr. Dirks said Thursday, “regardless of the political views of the speakers.”

Miss Coulter had said Wednesday that she would ignore the cancellation and speak regardless. “What are they going to do? Arrest me?” she asked rhetorically.