Longtime Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz has been invited to speak at UC Berkeley by a pro-Israel student group and in typical fashion, he's getting push back.
During an interview with Fox and Friends Thursday morning, Dershowitz revealed the university allows pro-Palestinian speakers to come on campus essentially whenever they like, but require an eight week waiting period before pro-Israel speakers are allowed to participate in events. Further, Berkeley administrators have said he cannot speak there because he is a "high visibility person."
Now, he's threatening to sue.
"I've been invited to speak at Berkeley but Berkeley says I can't speak there because I'm a 'high visibility person' and if you're high visibility you have to give eight weeks notice unless you're invited by a department," Dershowitz said. "Now, here's the trick. Departments invite anti-Israel speakers all the time so they don't have to go through the eight week thing. But they don't invite pro-Israel speakers. So, we have the eight week barrier whereas anti-Israel speakers don't have the eight week barrier and I'm going to sue Berkeley if they don't allow me to speak and make me wait eight weeks while they allow anti-Israel speakers to come within three or four days. That's a lawsuit."
"They have to have a single standard and we're going to hold them in it," he continued. "If they don't abide by it we're going to take them to court."
UC Berkeley, a taxpayer funded institution, has been sued multiple times for barring conservatives from speaking on campus.
Berkeley is a public university. They are bound by the First Amendment. https://t.co/LLXEicZEay
— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) September 28, 2017
Earlier this week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the Department of Justice will be enforcing the free speech rights of students on campuses across the country with federal resources.