Last night’s final stop of the Turning Point USA “American Comeback” campus tour at UC Berkeley exposed once again the bankruptcy of campus tolerance. Hundreds gathered inside and outside Zellerbach Hall for a sold-out program tied to the late Charlie Kirk, while loud, often hostile protests swelled around the venue — a stark reminder that some on the left prefer intimidation to debate.
The scene turned ugly at times, with video circulating of fights, thrown objects, and chaotic skirmishes that left at least one attendee bloodied and multiple people arrested. Local reports and eyewitness footage show scuffles near vendors selling memorial shirts and moments of genuine danger that could have been far worse if police hadn’t stepped in.
UC Berkeley officials and campus police say they prepared for the demonstration and stressed the protest was organized by outside groups, but the optics are damning: a university famous for free speech allowed an environment where conservative students and guests were shoved, harassed, and in one case forced into a physical confrontation. The school’s statements about supporting diverse views ring hollow when conservative students feel they must bring security to be heard.
This wasn’t just another lecture tour stop; it was part of a grieving, defiant effort to keep Charlie Kirk’s movement alive after his brutal killing in September. Turning Point’s campus work has only intensified since that assassination, and supporters came to honor his message while the left turned memorialization into a spectacle of outrage. The backdrop of Kirk’s death makes the violence and the media’s reflexive moralizing even more galling.
There are real consequences to this permissive culture: students arrested for vandalism, vendors assaulted, and a campus that looks more like a political battlefield than a place of learning. When universities fail to enforce the basic rules of civility and safety, they send a message that violence and intimidation are acceptable tools of political organizing. That is a terrifying precedent for any institution that claims to value inquiry and debate.
Turning Point’s decision to press forward, with speakers like Rob Schneider and other conservative voices on stage, should be praised for refusing to cede public space to the mob. Conservatives are not asking for safe spaces where dissent is silenced; they are insisting on the same protections the left claims to cherish but too often weaponizes when convenient. The sold-out crowd showed the appetite on campus for ideas the establishment considers unfashionable.
Accountability can’t be optional. The Department of Justice has signaled it will review the events and videos coming out of the protest, and local authorities have made arrests — steps that must lead to prosecutions where appropriate and to real campus policy changes. If universities want to be taken seriously about free speech, they must stop treating violence as a tolerated form of protest and start protecting every speaker, regardless of ideology.
At a moment when our country is fracturing, every institution that still has a claim to civic seriousness must choose whether it stands for the rule of law or for partisan mobs. Berkeley’s response to last night’s chaos will be a test of that choice; conservatives who care about free speech and safety will be watching, demanding consequences, and refusing to be silenced by intimidation.
