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 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Chancellor Nicholas Dirks made the following statement at a news conference today at which speakers provided an update on efforts to reschedule an appearance on campus by conservative author Ann Coulter: 
 
 This university has an unwavering commitment to the First Amendment of the Constitution, which enshrines and protects the right of freedom of speech and freedom of expression. As the home of the Free Speech Movement, we fully support the right and ability of our students to host speakers of their choice, and we believe that exposing students to a diverse array of perspectives is an inherent and inseparable part of our educational mission. 
 
 We also have an unwavering commitment to providing for the safety and well-being of speakers who come to campus, our students and other members of our campus and surrounding communities. 
 
 While there may, at times, be a tension between these two paired commitments, we cannot compromise on either. In that context, Ms. Coulter’s announcement that she intends to come to this campus on April 27 without regard for the fact that we don’t have a protectable venue available on that date is of grave concern. Our police department has made it clear that they have very specific intelligence regarding threats that could pose a grave danger to the speaker, attendees and those who may wish to lawfully protest the event. At the same time, we respect and support Ms. Coulter’s own First Amendment rights. 
 
 Given our serious reservations and concerns regarding Ms. Coulter’s stated intentions, last night I asked my staff to look beyond the usual venues we use for large public gatherings to see if there might be a protectable space for this event that would be available during the compressed, and extremely busy, window of time between now and the end of the academic year. 
 
 Fortunately, that expanded search identified an appropriate, protectable venue that is available on the afternoon of May 2. While it is not one we have used for these sorts of events in the past, it can both accommodate a substantial audience and meet the security criteria established by our police department. Earlier today, we informed both the Berkeley College Republicans and the Coulter organization of this development, and we look forward to working with them. We will disclose the exact location of the venue once we have finalized details with both organizations. ||||| — Conservative commentator Ann Coulter has turned down a compromise offer to speak next month at the University of California at Berkeley, insisting she plans to stick with next week’s planned appearance that was canceled by officials over security concerns. 
 
 Coulter’s rejection opened the latest showdown after days of dueling in which Berkeley called off the speech then later reversed the decision but offered a different date and venue. 
 
 It also again thrusts this liberal haven in the center of ideological struggles between campus free expression and protest movements after repeated violent outbursts at protests and speeches on this campus and elsewhere since President Trump’s election. 
 
 Rallies in and around Berkeley have devolved into near-riots that have included bloody fistfights and molotov cocktails. Left-wing activists have clashed with Trump supporters, and anarchists in black masks have squared off against ­self-proclaimed militia groups. 
 
 But in a series of tweets Thursday night, Coulter criticized the university, saying Berkeley officials were adding “burdensome” conditions to her speech. She said she had already spent money to hold the event on the original April 27 date and is not available May 2 — the alternative date proposed by Berkeley. 
 
 A University of California at Berkeley student stands atop the crushed roof of a campus police car during Free Speech Movement demonstrations in Berkeley, Calif., in 1964. (AP) 
 
 She also pointed out that May 2 would coincide with a reading period before final exams, when there are no classes on campus and fewer students around. 
 
 She vowed that she is going to speak in Berkeley on the originally planned April 27 date, whether the university approved or not. Meanwhile, a potential legal battle took shape. 
 
 A lawyer representing the college Republican group that invited Coulter sent a letter late Thursday to the university threatening “relief in federal court” if the university does not allow Coulter to speak on campus April 27. 
 
 Known for decades as a bastion of free speech, Berkeley has become an ideological — and actual — battleground, where even proposals to bring a polarizing speaker to campus are creating a wrenching dilemma. Now, the university — known as the birthplace of the 1960s Free Speech Movement — has been forced to weigh the values of free expression that it has long championed against the safety of its students and community. 
 
 [Berkeley gave birth to the Free Speech Movement in the 1960s. Now, conservatives are demanding it include them.] 
 
 For weeks now, the most extreme and often violent activists on the far right and far left have been flocking to this city to duke out their differences. 
 
 “It feels like we’ve become the O.K. Corral for the Hatfield and McCoys of the right and left,” said Dan Mogulof, the university’s assistant vice chancellor for public affairs. “We’re the venue for these showdowns taking place.” 
 
 1 of 17 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Who is Ann Coulter? View Photos A look at the career of the political commentator. Caption A look at the career of the political commentator. Aug. 27, 2016 Ann Coulter speaks onstage at “The Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe” at Sony Studios in Los Angeles Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
 
 The showdowns are, for many on the far right, part of a successful strategy: schedule a controversial event on campus or in town, wait for the liberal outrage and threats of violence to grow, and when the event is canceled, point out the hypocrisy and oppression against free speech. Ever since a February event involving right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos — a Breitbart News senior editor at the time — drew major unrest, Berkeley has become the biggest target. 
 
 “If I said I’d be at the center of Berkeley’s campus in 48 hours, how long do you think it would take to see 100 communists show up trying to kill me?” said Richard Spencer, a self-proclaimed white nationalist leader and a founder of the alt-right, a movement that seeks a whites-only state and whose adherents are known for espousing racist, anti-Semitic and sexist points of view. “Berkeley is home base to the left. It’s the headquarters not just to the academic left, but the activist left. That’s what makes it a platform.” 
 
 Spencer spent this week engaged in a skirmish of his own after Auburn University in Alabama tried to cancel a speech he was supposed to give there. After a federal judge ordered the event to proceed, a fistfight erupted outside the event and three people were arrested. Spencer declared it an “absolute victory.” 
 
 Trump’s election has changed something fundamental in the war between the far right and far left, Spencer said. For years, their battle was mostly confined to the Internet and social-media platforms such as Twitter. 
 
 “Now it’s really a battle over physical space,” Spencer said. “Do I have a right to speak? Can I speak in this place? 
 
 Openly hostile 
 
 Being a conservative student on the liberal public school campus in the Bay Area has long been a challenge. But Berkeley in 2017 seems openly hostile to Republican groups, some conservative activists say. Classmates spit on you and make obscene gestures. Your signs get ripped up. The label “fascist” follows wherever you go. 
 
 And now, when Republican students want to invite prominent speakers to campus as part of a free exchange of ideas, they fear the university will cancel the event because of possible violence. 
 
 Berkeley’s first high-profile burst of violence occurred Feb. 1, when antifascist protesters smashed windows, burned property and threw objects at police to protest Yiannopoulos. The riots caused officials to shut down the campus and cancel the event, prompting a tweet from Trump, who threatened to cut funding to the university if it would not allow free speech. 
 
 [Trump lashes back at Berkeley after violent protests block speech] 
 
 The cancellation of the Yiannopoulos event further galvanized activists on the far right, who viewed it as a call to arms and proof that conservatives around the country are being oppressed. 
 
 “I wanted to know that I wasn’t the only one outraged over what happened. I knew we had to go back to Berkeley,” said Rich Black, 26, a Los Angeles libertarian. He formed the Liberty Revival Alliance, with the specific goal of staging more right-wing, pro-Trump events in Berkeley and daring liberal groups to try to shut them down. 
 
 Black is getting what he wants at Berkeley. While pro- and anti-Trump rallies occurred nationwide on March 4 and last Saturday, Black’s rallies here had something none of the others did: violent clashes and breathless cable news coverage. 
 
 At his latest rally, roughly a dozen people were injured and 20 or so arrested after activists violently clashed in a popular Berkeley plaza. 
 
 Black, a technical grant writer by day, said the point is to expose the hypocrisy of the left when it comes to free speech and to fight — physically, if necessary — for the right of conservatives to say what they want. 
 
 “If a city isn’t blue or radically progressive, what’s the point of going there as a conservative?” he said. “A place like Berkeley is an indoctrination factory for the left. It’s the canary in the coal mine for the rights of people like me.” 
 
 Jesse Arreguin, Berkeley’s 32-year-old mayor and a participant in the Occupy movement and Black Live Matter protests, said he wants to ensure all opinions can be expressed in his city. But he won’t condone violence in the name of free speech. 
 
 “What’s happening is that outside groups have decided to make an example of Berkeley and to challenge our commitment to freedom of speech,” Arreguin said. “Berkeley has become the center of a convergence of these two sides, and it’s a very challenging situation.” 
 
 Inflaming the far-left 
 
 The mere appearance of far-right activists in Berkeley — from white supremacists to militia and anti-immigrant groups — has inflamed the far left, convincing them that they need to fight back harder, using force if necessary to oppose all whom they deem fascists. 
 
 They see the recent conservative rallies not as examples of free speech, but cunning attempts to hit liberals in one of their strongholds. 
 
 Yvette Felarca, a middle-school teacher in Oakland, leads the regional chapter of By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), a far-left militant group that has been at the center of many of the violent clashes in the past few months. The group takes its name from a line in a famous Malcolm X speech. 
 
 BAMN and the region’s anarchists, also known as antifascists, have organized most of the counter-demonstrations against conservative speakers and right-wing protesters who descend on the area. 
 
 The petite 47-year-old showed off scars from past rallies and talked about how she was pummeled at recent clashes at Berkeley. She said she is proud that left-leaning protesters like her were able to stop Yiannopoulos from speaking, even if it took violence. 
 
 Anarchists trying to disrupt the conservative rallies have been employing the “Black Bloc tactic” — with participants dressing in all black clothing and black masks to conceal their identities. They act as a cohesive unit as they engage in property destruction and violence. 
 
 Felarca said the far-right groups were the ones who have instigated physical violence, while the far-right groups say the opposite is true. But Felarca said she does not see it as a matter of free speech when someone is spewing fascism. 
 
 “The fascists could have been stopped in Germany if they were stopped when they were small,” she said. 
 
 Free speech 
 
 Many Berkeley residents and alumni have been appalled at the violence, but some are even more alarmed that the fights have bled into an argument over free speech — an issue that strikes at the city’s soul. 
 
 This was where students in the 1960s risked suspension, expulsion and even endured jail time, they point out, to win the right to say what they want on campus. 
 
 “Even during the heyday of the fight for free speech, you never saw violence like you’re seeing these days,” said historian Robert Cohen, 61, who participated in Berkeley’s anti-apartheid protests as a graduate student and eventually devoted his academic career to chronicling the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. “It’s sad and I disagree with the university canceling these events, but what these college Republicans are doing in inviting these hate-mongering speakers, it’s not about free speech. It’s a hustle game. They’re just baiting the left. But there’s real damage being done.” 
 
 He pointed to a speech given by student leader Mario Savio in December 1964, the day after students finally won the right to say what they want on campus. On that day, Cohen noted, Savio urged his students to recognize just how precious their right was and realize that with it comes responsibility. Otherwise, Savio said, it could “bring disgrace upon our university.” 
 
 “That’s what I find so painful and disrespectful about all of this now,” Cohen said. “The right that some of these people are invoking in this ugly fight back and forth — there were students at Berkeley who risked their careers over it, who were willing to go to jail for it.” 
 
 Wan reported from Washington. Susan Svrluga contributed to this report. ||||| The University of California, Berkeley, has reversed its decision to cancel a speech from conservative commentator Ann Coulter, proposing a different day and venue. 
 
 After initially canceling the author's planned talk over security concerns, the university changed course Thursday after officials say they found an "appropriate, protectable venue." 
 
 Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks issued a statement defending the university's "unwavering commitment to the First Amendment of the Constitution." 
 
 In the statement, Dirks also confirmed that he instructed university officials to look for a new venue for Coulter after she vowed to come to the school as planned on April 27 and deliver her speech. 
 
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 "Ms. Coulter’s announcement that she intends to come to this campus on April 27 without regard for the fact that we don’t have a protectable venue available on that date is of grave concern," Dirks wrote. "Fortunately, that expanded search identified an appropriate, protectable venue that is available on the afternoon of May 2." 
 
 Dirks went on to warn that local police had received "very specific intelligence regarding threats that could pose a grave danger to the speaker, attendees and those who may wish to lawfully protest the event." 
 
 Coulter, however, is skeptical. On Twitter, she blasted the university's response. 
 
 Berkeley press release: SOUTHERN SHERIFF RESCINDS CANCELATION OF BLACK VOTE! They'll just have to take this absurd literacy test first. — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) April 20, 2017 
 
 I'm speaking at Berkeley on April 27th, as I was invited to do and have a contract to do. https://t.co/thkiODIsSi — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) April 20, 2017 
 
 GOOD NEWS FOR CA TAXPAYER! You won't be required to pay $$$$ to compensate me & my crew for rebooked airfare & hotels. I'm speaking on 4/27. https://t.co/gsScwzeDNM — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) April 20, 2017 
 
 In addition to facts: We've already spent $ for 4/27 Berkeley spc & I can't do May 2...THERE ARE NO CLASSES AT BERKELEY THE WEEK OF MAY 2!!! — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) April 21, 2017
– Ann Coulter can speak at the University of California-Berkeley after all, the university says—but the different date it has proposed is nowhere near good enough. After Berkeley, which said it called off her April 27 speech due to security concerns, issued a press release saying she had been offered a slot on May 2, Coulter slammed the university in a series of tweets, the Hill reports. The conservative author complained "burdensome conditions" were being put on her constitutional right to speak, likened Berkeley to a "Southern sheriff" trying to stop black people from voting, and vowed to speak on the original date. Coulter's vow to come to campus April 27 "without regard for the fact that we don’t have a protectable venue available on that date is of grave concern," Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said in Berkeley's statement, adding that he asked for an expanded search, which "identified an appropriate, protectable venue that is available on the afternoon of May 2." Officials worry the Coulter speech will become the latest Berkeley clash between far-left and far-right activists. "It feels like we've become the OK Corral for the Hatfield and McCoys of the right and left," Dan Mogulof, the university's assistant vice chancellor for public affairs, tells the Washington Post. "We're the venue for these showdowns taking place."