Schools
UC Berkeley Settles Lawsuit With Conservative Groups
Berkeley College Republicans and Tennessee-based Young America's Foundation had sued the university.
BERKELEY, CA — The University of California at Berkeley announced Monday it has reached a settlement with a Republican student group and a foundation in a lawsuit that claimed the campus discriminated against conservative speakers.
Under the agreement, the university will modify the wording of procedures in its policy on major events. The two groups, Berkeley College Republicans and Tennessee-based Young America's Foundation, will drop the lawsuit they filed last year.
The university will also publish a new fee schedule for costs of student-hosted events and will pay the groups $70,000 for part of their attorney's fees in the case.
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The lawsuit claimed the university violated the groups' rights to free speech and equal treatment by discriminating against speakers with conservative viewpoints.
UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said the campus "has never discriminated on the basis of viewpoint."
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He said the policy wording changes are non-substantive clarifications of an existing nondiscrimination policy and that fees have always been based on viewpoint-neutral criteria.
"The pending changes to the major event policy are all entirely consistent with and supportive of existing practices and the campus' well-established values and commitment to free speech," Mogulof said.
Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer for the foundation, said the changes will have "a liberty impact on generations of students" at UC.
"All students at UC Berkeley now have the exciting opportunity to hear a variety of viewpoints on campus without the artificial tax of security fees selectively imposed on disfavored speech," Dhillon said in a statement.
The Young America's Foundation is a conservative youth organization that provides conferences and speakers.
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— Bay City News; Image via Shutterstock
