THE

OFFICIAL
ANTI-MILO

(DIGITAL)
TOOLKIT

The world is full of very

dangerous faggots, but you are
not one of them.
I raise a glass to the real
dangerous faggots, from the
AIDS survivors and queer
anarchists to the trans women
of color at stonewall and the
mincers of Fire Island.
Heres to every disobedient
queer body to ever walk the
streets in defiance of state and
society.
-Neil Lawrence-

CONTRIBUTORS
Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda
https://twitter.com/hofmann_kuroda

Beezer de Martelly
http://www.hellmanfellows.org/graduate-awardees/elizabeth-de-martelly-music/

Julia Havard
http://tdps.berkeley.edu/people/julia-havard/

Amanda Armstrong-Price
https://lsa.umich.edu/history/people/faculty/aarmst.html

Juliet Kunkel
https://www.linkedin.com/in/julietkunkel

Sarah Cowan
Miyuki Baker
https://heymiyuki.wordpress.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction .... 4
What is Free Speech Dialogue
....7
Sample Free Speech Syllabus
.10
Sample Free Speech Lesson Plan
....11
Sample Letters to Faculty and
Admin.... 13
Anti-Milo Flyer
Templates....16
Anti-Milo Banner and Sticker Templates
...20
What to Expect at an Anti-Milo Rally
.21
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Labor Grievance Strategy

22
Commonly Asked Questions and Answers
..23
Digital Security .27
Cal Alumni
To-Do..28
Showing Up to Shut Milo Down at UCB
29

INTRODUCTION
Milo Yiannopoulos is a Breitbart journalist and member of the so-called alt-right,
a loosely affiliated group mobilized largely through internet platforms with
far-right ideologies tied to white nationalism, Islamophobia, anti-feminism,
homophobia, transphobia, and anti-Semitism.
The name of his speaking tourThe Dangerous Faggot Tourwhich travels
through thirteen U.S. college campuses over the course of three months, brands
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itself on much of the same sensationalism that fueled the rise of Donald Trump:
inflammatory rhetoric couched in aggressive racism, xenophobia, transphobia,
homophobia, and Islamophobia.
Yiannopoulos repeatedly uses his identitiesas a white, foreign-born, gay
manto evade accountability for his violent rhetoric. And yet, he has leveraged
the recent gains around transgender rights in the United States to argue that
such gains are a distraction from the rights of white gay men.
He has also called for the incitement of physical violence against transgender
women, has named Black Lives Matter, a group that calls attention to the
disproportionate number of Black Americans killed by law enforcement, a
terrorist organization, and has called feminism a cancer that must be
obliterated.
As he has traveled through a number of university campuses these past months,
the level of violence at his events has been escalating.
In December of 2016, Milo outed a transgender woman who was a student at the
University of Wisconsin and had been active in the push for gender-neutral
bathrooms on campus. He projected her face and name onto a screen in front of
hundreds of people, livestreaming the projection to his internet audience, and
belittled and mocked her gender identity. This resulted in a deluge of hate mail
and her inability to return to campus.
In mid-January of 2017, Milos talk was shut down by activists at UC Davis, but
not before large groups of neo-nazis and white supremacists from around the
state of California gathered to network with one another at the event, creating a
potentially violent and extremely unsafe situation for the queer,
gender-nonconforming and transgender students in the crowd. Directly
following the shutdown of this event, student activists at UC Davis began
receiving rape and death threats.
In late January of 2017, an anti-racist organizer protesting Milos talk at the
University of Washington was shot by a white supremacist and left in critical
condition. Though his actions were completely unprovoked, the shooter was
released by police custody on grounds of self-defense.

In November of 2016, we began a multi-directional email campaign to contact

faculty and administration at UC Berkeley about the potential for real physical
harm that Milos presence on campus would pose to the student body,
particularly its most marginalized membersdisabled, transgender, students of
color, Muslim and undocumented students.
In January of 2017, after a successful email campaign, over a hundred UC
Berkeley faculty signed onto a letter to the administration calling for the
cancellation of Yiannopouloss event, citing the illegality of harassment based
on gender identity (Title IX) which Yiannopouloss rhetoric has repeatedly
violated. The administration refused to cancel the event, citing that the right to
free speech overrode discrimination and harassment.
The administrations insistence on claiming the right to free speech is of course
a ruse, a way to confuse liberal commentators, and ultimately, lets not mince
words, a cover for spreading genocidal politics. In re-enacting state violence
against student protesters, campus administrators make very clear how much
they value students freedom of speech and bodily integrity (and remind us of
how patchily such values have been upheld by the same campus administrators
who now preach the doctrine of free speech ber alles).
Despite such displays of violence, Milo apparently continues to fool some Free
Speech Movement alumnis, who have come to treat freedom of speech as a
religious imperative. In their recent editorial, such alums have nothing to say
about Milos racist abuse against Leslie Jones, or his grotesque harassment of a
transgender student at UW-Milwaukee, suggesting that the editorialists have no
way to critically parse protected speech from harassment. Their editorial clearly
illustrates how free speech, if pursued at the expense of a broader project for
social emancipation, simply ratifies and sanctifies existing hierarchies and
mechanisms of power, which condition what is able to be said and done by
whom and where.
The demand for free speech only helps build democratic possibilities insofar as it
is articulated within the framework of a broader push for social equality and
emancipation (as, for example, in the IWWs early twentieth century campaigns
for the right to give speeches in public, or in the Free Speech Movement itself,
which gained traction ONLY through its association with the civil rights
movement).
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Countering Milo and the alt-right requires an ability to critically assess the ways
in which the vocabulary of liberal-academic discourse is currently being
co-opted by extreme right-wing groups in order to legitimate and further a
platform of genocide and terror against historically marginalized groups. Rather
than cling to liberal ideologies that fail to place the rhetoric of rights within
historically specific frameworks, we must take a strong stance against the
legitimation and normalization of harassment, hate speech, and physical
violencea trend that is already well under way in the current Trump
administration.
We must hold the university accountable to its pledge to remain a sanctuary for
communities that have been historically under assault by those in power. We
can continue this work by not allowing space for the spread of violence.

WHAT IS FREE SPEECH

DIALOGUE
Free Speech Script for Role Plays
INTRODUCTION: Today were talking about some common myths around the
notion of free speech. In recent years, college campuses around the United
States have seen heated debates about free speech. Student activists have called
for the cancellation of events that make our campuses unsafe spaces for some
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students. Others bemoan these actions as impeding free speech. Whats behind
all the hype?
INTERVIEWER: When student groups protest or demand the cancellation of
speakers events, they are censoring that speaker and suppressing free speech.
RESPONDENT: Well, its not so simple as that. Students and groups protest or
demand the cancellation of events for a variety of reasons. Generally, these
protests are meant to draw attention to something problematic about the
speaker, including their incitements to violence against individuals or against
those who belong to particular communities.
Often these problematic things actually bear on others ability to speak and on
their access to free speech. For example, when students and faculty at Haverford
College raised concerns about then-UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneaus
scheduled commencement speech in 2014, they did so because Birgeneau
himself had recently suppressed the speech of student protestors at UC Berkeley
who were involved in the Occupy movement.
In this case and others like it, its very important to keep in mind that different
people come to public spaces with different amounts of power and resources for
making speech. Birgeneau was an invited guest of Haverford College, set to
receive an honorary degree from the university. He had many other avenues
available to him for expressing his political, personal, and intellectual positions.
The UC Berkeley students who were beaten by police with batons with
Birgeneaus support had themselves been exercising their right to free speech
through protest. Relative to Birgeneau, they had fewer options for doing so. And
actually, protests often occur because groups have tried other avenues of
communicating concerns to no avail.
When we consider these two moments of free speech alongside one
anotheran invited speech by a campus administrator and student protestswe
see that free speech is not a monolithic thing. Most importantly, everyone
comes to speech with different amounts of power. For many people, organized
protest is a way of asserting their right to protected free speech in the face of
disempowerment.
INTERVIEWER: But if we dont let certain people speak on campus, then dont we
open ourselves up to being censored?
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RESPONDENT: The argument that Milo Yiannopoulos is being singled out and
denied access to free speech not only erases the many avenues he already has for
circulating his ideologies, but it masks the ways in which the university
routinely censors political opinions with which its administrators disagree. For
example, in 2016, UC Berkeley administrators called for the cancellation of a
student-taught class on settler colonialism in Palestine. Only after significant
public outcry about this act of political censorship was the class ultimately
reinstated. We need to acknowledge the already existing uneven access to free
speech on campus and pay closer attention to when, how, and for whom
administrators act to defend or suppress free speech rights.
INTERVIEWER: Students are treated like snowflakes and they live in bubbles. It's
good to be exposed to different points of view.
RESPONDENT: The bubble rhetoric is flawed, as the university is not a bubble
separating us from reality, but is itself a political space. It is up to all of us to
shape its values, understand its already existing exclusions and inequalities, and
work to extend its resources to communities that have been historically excluded
from university spaces. Furthermore, the notion that vigorous political debates
should be relegated to safer private spaces not only de-politicizes the public
sphere (including public university campuses) but also assumes that private
spaces, like homes, are necessarily safer spaces to which we all have access. This
is simply not true.
INTERVIEWER: You know the saying, stick and stones can break my bones, but
words will never hurt me. Arent students who dont want certain speakers on
campus being overly sensitive? Words arent going to hurt them, even if they
communicate bad ideas.
RESPONDENT: Words have concrete effects on the world, and they can inspire
others to commit violent acts and create a hostile environment for targeted
groups. Words can put peoples lives and well-being in danger. Take, for
example, the spike in hate crimes following Trumps inauguration, where in
some cases, individuals have shouted Trump after committing these crimes.
These instances make clear the links between Trumps violent rhetoric and acts
of harm committed against the communities he targets. Words embolden acts of
hatred and violence and we must also acknowledge the emotional and
exclusionary harms as well as the physical violence they enable.
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INTERVIEWER: OK, but everyone has a right to free speech. It's in the
Constitution.
RESPONDENT: To address this, lets turn to BeeBee Buchanan's recent article on
the histories that underline the writing of the Constitution. Their analysis
productively reframes this question: The Naturalization Act of 1790 extended
citizenship to free white men with propertymeaning that citizens were
required to have these social positions in order to be incorporated under the
Constitution of the United States. For those of us outside of that frame, neither
our speech nor our bodies were free. Black bodies and communities were
enslaved to support the speech and interests of white capitalists; preoccupation
with the free speech of landed whites occurred simultaneously with, and relied
on, the subjugation of Black bodiesbecause we were not considered people.
Freedom of speech, then, is not a universal, constant idea which has existed
throughout history; it is deployed differently depending on time frame, and
bestowed unequally based on social position. Understanding these
discrepancies, we cannot defend free speech without examining by whom and
for whom speech is free. Instead, let us ask: how does this idea defend the
interests of the powerful and silence the oppressed?

SAMPLE FREE SPEECH

SYLLABUS
BeeBee Buchannan, Free, But Not to Kill Me. Medium. 2 January 2017.
Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda, Hate Speech vs. Free Speech: The Future of the Public
Sphere in the Age of Trump. Huffington Post. 14 December 2016.
Amanda Armstrong, Why Did Fascist Agitators at UC Davis Reenact the
Violence of the Pepper Spray Cop? Truth Out. 24 January 2017.
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Neil Lawrence, An Open Letter to Milo Yiannopoulos. Op-Ed, The Daily Cal. 17
January 2017.
What Counts as Violence: Why the Right Can Shoot Us Now. CrimethInk. 23
January 2017.

SAMPLE FREE SPEECH

LESSON PLAN
Time:
1 - 1.5 Hours
Objectives:
Discuss the history of the concept of free speech including its initial intentions,
critically examine how and in what contexts it has been invoked, and discuss
exclusions built into its foundations
Materials:
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Printed or projected copies of one or more of the articles referenced above; pens
or pencils; slips of blank paper for each student
Procedure:
Assign one or more of the articles referenced above to your students before class
meeting or have students read excerpts of one or more of these articles just
before you begin the discussion questions.
Free Write (5-10 minutes): Consider beginning class with a 5 minute free write
activity with the following prompt: What does free speech mean to you? What
are your associations with it? Who typically invokes this right and in what
contexts? Take up to 5 minutes to ask students if they would like to share their
reflections.
Framing (5-10 minutes): Briefly, provide a short introduction of Milo
Yiannopoulos and the conflicts surrounding his Dangerous Faggot tour. (For a
brief summary of the issues, which you can read aloud, visit this link or read the
Introduction to this Toolkit.)
Readings and Discussion (45-75 minutes): Take 15-30 minutes to either revisit
and summarize assigned readings or take some time to have students read
excerpts aloud from printed or projected sources. Next, move on to discussion
(some suggested questions appear below), taking 30-45 minutes to unpack the
free speech question together.
Discussion Questions:
1. Milo Yiannopoulos continuously derails conversations around privilege,
oppression, and violence by religious appeals to free speech that lack any
sort of context. What are some of the rhetorical strategies he engages in in
order to make his position of white supremacy and extreme misogyny
appear to be one that is under attack and in need of protection? Whats
missing from his framework?
2. Freedom of speech, then, is not a universal, constant idea which has
existed throughout history; it is deployed differently depending on time
frame, and bestowed unequally based on social position. Understanding
these discrepancies, we cannot defend free speech without examining by
whom and for whom speech is free. Instead, let us ask: how does this idea
12

defend the interests of the powerful and silence the oppressed? How does
BeeBee Buchanans historical summary of the Constitution highlight its
exclusions and relationship with power, death, and vulnerability...created
by cissexism, anti-blackness, and nationalism? What might this mean in
the context of Milo Yiannopouloss invoking of free speech rights?
3. Those who decry the censorship of any type of speechincluding hate
speechin the public sphere increasingly resort to the logic of free market
capitalism, in which the speaker who already wields the most power and
influence, and thus speaks loudest, is heard. However, they forget that the
First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has exceptions. Those are:
incitement to violence, defamation, fraud, obscenity, child pornography,
fighting words, and threats. As the Supreme Court held in Brandenburg v.
Ohio (1969), the government may forbid incitementspeech directed at
inciting or producing imminent lawless action and likely to incite or
produce such action. In what ways does Lisa Hofmann-Kurodas article
point to the limits of free speech?

SAMPLE LETTERS TO FACULTY

AND ADMINISTRATION
Subject: Please speak out against campus visit by hateful agitator Milo
Yiannopoulos
Attn: _______ faculty,
We are writing to ask you to take action to keep students safe at ________ by
speaking out against an upcoming visit to our campus by a racist, xenophobic,
transphobic, misogynist agitator and serial harasser. Milo Yiannopoulos has
been invited to speak by the _______ College Republicans on ________ as part of a
nationwide speaking tour across college campuses.

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As a prominent representative of white nationalism and mens rights, Milo

Yiannopoulos is a champion of hate speech against people of color and women.
He equates Black Lives Matter with black supremacism[1] and argues that the
protest movement should be labeled a terrorist organization[2]. He interprets
the desire for diversity at college campuses as anti-White racism[3] and has
gone so far as to set up a Privilege Grant exclusively for white men to help this
demographic pursue postsecondary degrees in the face of alleged institutional
discrimination[4]. He has received particular notoriety for his support of Britain
leaving the European Union[5] as a way to end immigration of people from
ordinary Muslim communities which he alleges importregressive social
attitudes into the West[6] He calls for a 5-10% cap on the number of women in
STEM programs because they cant cut it in highly competitive environments
and any higher proportions are a criminal waste of public funds.[7] He
encourages men to flush their partners' birth control down the toilet, stating
birth control makes you fat and women on the pill are more likely to
cheat.[8] Finally, he denounces rape culture as a myth propagated by feminists
aimed squarely at undermining masculinity.[9]
We are writing now to urge you to emphasize to the administration the potential
for physical violence at Yiannopouloss talk by calling their attention to a
number of threats that we as organizers have received online in our efforts to
cancel this event.
In January of 2017, an anonymous account by the name of Jose Vult began
posting threats to the No Milo at Berkeley event page on Facebook. (For context,
this is an event page where individuals RSVP to protest Milo Yiannopoulos at
Berkeley on February 1st). T
he threats posted by this user suggested that a
number of Milo supporters would be carrying loaded guns to the protest and
threatening to shoot leftists who are seeking to cancel the talk. (See attached
image for reference)
Similarly, in a campus computer lab, UC Berkeley graduate student and J20
organizer Phoebe Parker-Shames found a printout addressed to 'fellow fascists'
urging preparation for a genocidal 'purge' and espousing anti-Semitic views.
(See attached image for reference)
Finally, Berkeley activists attended the protest at Milos UC Davis event on
January 13th, where we witnessed a number of troubling incidents. In addition
to Milo supporters heckling and taunting crowds of students, many high profile
14

white nationalists used the event to recruit on campus, creating a particularly

threatening climate in which the mainly queer and people of color students
opposed to the event were surrounded by a large crowd (several hundred by
some estimates) of organized white supremacists.
During this event, one UC Davis graduate student received a message from an
anonymous Milo protester that read: Silencing free speech deserves the death
penalty. I hope a school shooter finds you and that you are brutally raped. A
purge is coming and soon people like you will no longer exist. (See attached
image)
We witnessed police violence against students protesting the event, in which
students were aggressively dragged by police out of the lecture hall where Milo
was scheduled to speak by their clothing, leading some to require medical
attention for injuries inflicted in the process.
All of this, along with the incident in Wisconsin, in which a transgender student
was specifically targeted and harassed for her gender identity in front of a
hostile crowd, leads us to believe that inviting Milo to Berkeley will incite
physical violence and directly threaten the physical safety of our student body's
most vulnerable members.
Students have been contacting the University administration to implore them to
cancel this event, but they have responded that they are bound by the First
Amendment, and that this speaking engagement does not reflect an
endorsement of Yiannopouloss views. However, the Berkeley College
Republicans, as a Registered Student Organization, receive financial benefits
such as reduced fees for event spaces from the University. The administration is
indeed endorsing this event in the form of fiscal support, and I imagine that you
as faculty are as disgusted by this as I am as a student. We know Berkeley to be
better than this.
I urge you, as a faculty member with a voice of influence and a secure position,
to speak out against this atrocious invitation and protect the safety of
marginalized students on campus. Please do not stand idly by and let our
campus become a megaphone for hate, harassment, and incitements to violence.
We ask that you urge the administration to cancel the event before February 1st
to prevent this from happening.

15

You can take action by spreading the word among colleagues and fellow faculty
members, and contacting the following individuals.
s your students, we ask you to please stand up for us and against institutional
A
support for white supremacy and violence.
In solidarity,
_______________

For additional letter templates to faculty and administration, see the following
link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/16eu_m3fRKZ6WGzvsMHH3xXXHa9u3K8
KNF2UPrnMdiHI/edit

ANTI-MILO FLYER TEMPLATES

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ANTI-MILO STICKER TEMPLATES

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WHAT TO EXPECT AT AN
ANTI-MILO RALLY
Rallies surrounding Milo Yiannopouloss talks can vary depending on the venue
particulars, and geographic proximity to areas with a higher concentration of
white supremacist groups. Generally, rallies have frequently included the
following elements:
~White nationalists (some very high profile) mingling and organizing with local
people sympathetic to their ideologies
~Lots of younger people, mostly white and mostly cisgender men, congregating
and agitating the crowd verbally and physically
~Several organized provocateurs, some who physically shove or assault people of
color, trans folks, and concerned students and/or members of the public
~Live streamers who record the events for live broadcast and ridicule during
Milo Yiannopouloss performance
~A mixture of local police presence, likely militarized and dressed in riot gear,
and private security (some in plainclothes) brought in by Milo Yiannopoulos
Come prepared:
~Learn to recognize and support all of your allies (including those who are
engaging in lower stakes peripheral support work and those who are helping
cancel these events) from agitators who may try to blend in with your allies to
sow confusion
~Check in with your affinity group (a smaller group of people you know and
trust) and decide on your levels of participation and escalation beforehand; stick
together and consider having a buddy who will always be next to you at the
event; designate meet-up points in case you become separated
~Coordinate with trained street medics to ensure the safety of your
communities; a useful street medic guide can be found here
~Some people have found it useful to anonymize themselves (e.g., through
wearing face masks and/or bandanas) in order to avoid harassment or targeting
by agitators or police

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LABOR GRIEVANCE STRATEGY

If your campus is unionized, urge student workers and lecturers to file a
grievance stating that Milos hate speech and incitement to violence creates an
unsafe work environment for you and your students. For members of UAW 2865,
a template grievance complaint, written by key organizers at UC Davis, below
outlines how Milos presence violates Article 20 of the UAW 2865 Contract.
Please visit this link to download a grievance form--you can use the text below
for the Description of the Alleged Violation and Remedy Requested fields.
Email your completed form to UAW 2865 Head Steward Beezer de Martelly at
elizabeth.demartelly@gmail.com by January 29:
Description of the Alleged Violation of the Agreement:
The administration of the University of California, Berkeley, my employer, is
currently fostering an environment that encourages harassment and
discriminatory treatment based on one of the protected categories in Article 20
of the Agreement between the University and UAW 2865 by allowing a known
white supremacist, sexist, and all around bigot, Milo Yianopoulos, to speak at my
workplace. As a __________, Mr. Yiannopoulos' presence and speech discriminates
against me personally and will interfere with the performance of my work
duties. By providing a platform for the expression of violent hate speech, the
university is welcoming behavior that is harmful to me and my students who fall
within the categories of Article 20 of the contract. For the reasons outlined
above, the university is in violation of Article 20 of the contract. Moreover, by
allowing Mr. Yiannopoulos to speak at my workplace, the university is in
violation of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act which prohibits
harassment against protected categories which include, but are not limited to,
race, religion, sex, and gender. Taking these two violations together, the
university is currently participating in discriminatory activity and fostering a
hostile work environment for its employees.
Remedy Requested:
I demand that the university cease to encourage discriminatory activity by
prohibiting Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking in my workplace on the University
of California, Berkeley campus. In addition I demand the university issue a
statement condemning Milo's and all forms of hate speech at my workplace.

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COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS

AND ANSWERS
Q: Who is Milo Yiannopoulos, and whats the deal with him?
A: Milo Yiannopoulos is a conservative journalist with B
reitbart, an alt-right (i.e.,
far right/white nationalist) media outlet. His tactics include online trolling as a
deliberate antagonizing tactic (as in his racist attacks on Leslie Jones on Twitter),
doxxing (as in his harassment of Brianna Wu during Gamergate), public
incitement to hate and violence (as in his outing and sexual harassment of a
trans student at the University of Wisconsin), and the general guise of humor to
popularize transphobic, Islamophobic, misogynistic, and white supremacist
ideas.
Q: Milos camp represents a minority viewpoint. Shouldnt all minority
viewpoints be allowed to express their views?
A: We support individuals who wish to express minority viewpoints, a position
many of us have been in before. However, we recognize an important distinction
between legitimate political debate and harassment and/or incitements to
violence, which we do not believe should be protected (whether through the
Constitution or as a broader set of principles not confined to that flawed
document). Free speech is not an abstract principle that can be evaluated in
isolation from the social world in which it is enacted, in which the distribution
of power and access to resources is highly uneven. Further, we believe that there
are some positions that must not be legitimized, as there are real and violent
consequences to normalizing them. For example, while the question Should
taxes be raised or lowered? may be legitimate grounds for political debate, the
question Should Black people be exterminated? is not, and there are very
dangerous consequences to treating it as such. In these moments when such
questions threaten to be normalized, we must exercise our own rights to free
speech (again, not simply anchored in the Constitution) and demonstrate that
such dangerous speech acts have consequences. We will prevent these acts of
hatred and violence from circulating and spreading however we need to,
particularly as many in our campus community have faced threats of violence
(including sexual assault, death and shooting threats) for speaking out against
24

this incendiary speaker at a moment of international political volatility and the

ascendence of the far right. The point of free speech is not just that everyone
can say anything they want at any time, but that speech has real material
consequences in society.
Q: So who should decide what is free speech and what is hate speech?
A: Those in positions of power with immense privilege have historically made
decisions about which voices are allowed to be heard and who has the freedom to
speak. As BeeBee Buchanan points out in their article (referenced above), the
Constitution was not written to defend the rights and humanity of all people. It
was not written for women, people of color, immigrants, poor people, or queers.
Thus, basing our understanding of who should have the right to speak entirely
on this document is necessarily exclusionary. The question is, how can we
recognize how this Constitutional right is being strategically deployed by white
supremacists to defend their violent points of views and actions? How can we
instead work to ensure the physical and emotional safety and well-being of all
people, but especially those who have been historically and systemically
marginalized, the same people that Yiannopoulos targets in his rhetoric and that
his supporters have targeted through violent action?
Q: Does the university actually care about free speech?
A: The universitys position on free speech is very inconsistent and often driven
by motivations of funding and reputation rather than a commitment to
democratic discourse or amplifying voices that have historically been
marginalized. The universitys position mostly aligns with a mainstream
understanding of free speech tied to a notion of civility that serves to protect
the speech of the powerful (generally wealthy, white cisgender men), while
de-legitimizing, policing, and excluding any speech that would challenge this
discourse. In fact, the university has often censored political positions with
which its administrators disagree. For example: the 2016 censorship of a class on
settler colonialism in Palestine, the 2009 and 2011 UC
administration-sanctioned police attacks on students protesting steep tuition
hikes, and the routine censorship and harassment of campus labor activists and
workers.
Q: Wouldnt it be better if we just ignored this troll and/or organized an
alternative event?
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A: Ignoring the rapid spread of white supremacy, transphobia, misogyny, and

xenophobia, will not make it go away. Quite the opposite. Permitting this event
to take place as planned provides a space for further recruitment of young
people into hate groups and the further normalization of violence. Milos talks
have been spaces for racists, white supremacists, transphobes, and
Islamophobes to meet and network both inside and outside of the venue.
Allowing these events to transpire with implicit institutional support (despite
administrators arguments to the contrary) sends a message that this is simply
an alternative viewpoint which deserves a legitimate platform for debate.
Further, following the inauguration of Donald Trump, there were widespread
calls for directly engaging individuals with political viewpoints that differ from
our own. We believe that calling for an alternative program only further
entrenches the divisions that have led us to this moment. Now is the time to
make clear that the stakes of these divisions have real consequences. As this
report in Its Going Down argues, To really stop the alt-right, they shouldnt be
ignored. The must be confronted.
Q: Whats the actual harm in allowing this event to go forward?
A: While many white cisgender men are working to defend Milos right to free
speech, people of color, trans people, and womens right to SURVIVE is in peril.
The death threats, rape threats, police brutality, harassment, and shooting that
have occurred surrounding Milos talks should be evidence that, in this scenario,
a white supremacists perspective and opinions are being held up as more
deserving of protection than queer and trans people of colors bodies. The actual
harm here is a very real threat of violence against students and workers on our
campus. This threat of physical harm itself functions as a form of white
supremacy that is reiterating itself on our campus, revealing the ways that UCB
already thrives off of upholding these structures of inequality on an
institution-wide basis. This talk, enabled by the economic support the campus, is
a form of violence against marginalized people and affects the environment in
which we learn and teach. The long-term effect of this is the gradual
normalization of white supremacy and transphobia as a legitimate minority
view, and the recruitment of young people into hate groups through the
networking and outreach that white nationalist and other hate groups engage in
at events such as these.
Q: Do we support the UC imposing high fees on speakers we oppose?
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A: Raising the price tag for controversial speakers is entirely missing the point,
and sets an unsettling precedent where the public is asked to pay the costs of a
hyper-militarized event. We do not support this as a tactic for discouraging
controversial events, as we recognize that increased policing is also a source of
violence for many communities. It also distracts from the fundamental concerns
around public appearances like Milos, where he has incited hatred and violence
against individuals and entire communities. It puts the cost of this talk in terms
of dollars instead of concrete lives, the lives that Milos hate speech threatens.
Q: Isnt using the word Nazi to describe Milo a bit extreme?:
A: The alt-right, the movement that Yiannapoulos largely identifies himself
with, is a movement that takes up racist and sexist ideologies and frames them
within liberal and academic language. His self-framing as a cultural critic is
particularly insidious. As academics and/or people who work within academic
institutions, we need to examine and unravel the way that his framing makes
white supremacy and other forms of historical violence seem palatable and
normal to a larger crowd. His racist, sexist, ableist, Islamophobic rhetoric also
speaks to groups that explicitly identify as white supremacist, white nationalist,
skinhead, and neo-nazi. We know that white supremacists have been using his
tour to network with each other and to grow stronger as a movement, for
instance, outside of the scheduled talk at UC Davis, which allies shut down.
Milos hate speech works to normalize these ideas and enables violence toward
marginalized people. None of us, as teachers and/or students of all identities,
can afford to let our institution become a safe harbor and organizing space for
hate groups, including nazis.

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DIGITAL SECURITY
Trolling, online harassment and threats, and doxxing (searching for and
publishing private or identifying information about a particular individual on
the Internet, typically with malicious intent) are some common tactics of Milo
and his followers. Activists who attach their name or identity to op-eds, event
groups, or protest actions should know that this may make them a target.
Organizers and activists are encouraged to use non-university affiliated email
accounts and end-to-end encrypted messaging apps such as Signal to
communicate with one another. They are also advised to keep personal
information about themselves out of the hands of alt-right members by using
pseudonyms, wearing identity-obscuring masks on the day of the protest, etc.
Safety and solidarity!

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CAL ALUMNI CALL-IN

Berkeley alums! How can you prevent your alma mater from becoming
infested with homo-hating racist nazis? A To-Do List for millennial bbs.
1) PRESSURE THE ADMINISTRATION TO CANCEL THIS EVENT; SEND LETTERS,
WRITE EMAILS, MAKE CALLS; THREATEN TO WITHDRAW ANY FINANCIAL
SUPPORT YOU CURRENTLY PROVIDE TO UC. (You can find info on whom to
contact and what to say h
ere)
2) EDUCATE YOUR PEOPLE, SPREAD THE WORD, ASK PEOPLE TO SHOW UP TO
HELP CANCEL THIS AND OTHER RELATED EVENTS! (Read this FAQ 4 help)
3) STICKER BOMB (USING THE ATTACHED STICKER DESIGN TEMPLATES) AND
POST FLYERS (USING THE ATTACHED FLYER DESIGN TEMPLATES); SHARE BOTH
ON SOCIAL MEDIA
4) SHOW UP YOURSELF AND BRING YOUR FRIENDS TO HELP US CANCEL MILO
ON FEBRUARY 1ST, 5 PM AT THE UC BERKELEY MLK STUDENT CENTER

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SHOWING UP TO SHUT DOWN

MILO AT UC BERKELEY
[2 - 1 - 17]
Ready to come out and support student, faculty, worker, and community efforts
to cancel this talk? If this talk isnt already cancelled, meet us on Wednesday,
February 1, 2017 at 5pm outside of the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Center on
the campus of UC Berkeley (on Bancroft Ave., just west of Telegraph). Bring your
allies and friends!

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