**Written by Doug Powers

I’m guessing we could be about to experience a really short “year” in Berkeley:

Carol T. Christ, UC Berkeley’s 11th chancellor and the first woman to lead the nation’s top public research university, unveiled plans Tuesday for a “Free Speech Year” as right-wing speakers prepare to come to campus.

Christ said the campus would hold “point-counterpoint” panels to demonstrate how to exchange opposing views in a respectful manner. Other events will explore constitutional questions, the history of Berkeley’s free speech movement and how that movement inspired acclaimed chef Alice Waters to create her Chez Panisse restaurant.

And if Berkeley’s new chancellor keeps talking like this she’s going to get chased out of town faster than Ann Coulter disguised as Milo Yiannopoulos reading aloud from a David Horowitz book:

She drew loud applause when she asserted that the best response to hate speech is “more speech” rather than trying to shut down others, and when she said that shielding students from uncomfortable views would not serve them well.

“You have the right to expect the university to keep you physically safe, but we would be providing you less of an education, preparing you less well for the world after you graduate, if we tried to protect you from ideas that you may find wrong, even noxious,” she said.

The No Vacancy signs might soon be lighting up outside campus safe spaces everywhere (not to mention a “vacancy” sign outside the chancellor’s office).

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe