Political Violence at Riley Gaines Event Is Par For The Course In San Francisco

Political Violence at Riley Gaines Event Is Par For The Course In San Francisco

When the champion athlete and women’s rights activist Riley Gaines was assaulted after her speech at San Francisco State University, outrage poured in. Gaines was in the midst of her Turning Point USA campus tour talking about her experience coming second to a male athlete in a swimming competition.

Gaines described the incident in the Daily Mail. After being heckled and interrupted during her speech, she was accosted by an aggressive crowd in the hallway and hit in the face by a man dressed as a woman. Campus cops, including a plain-clothed officer, whisked her into an office and barricaded the door as the crowd continued to chant insults and racial slurs and demand that the officers give up the speaker. A one point, the mob asked for ransom. Gaines explained that while she came to expect heckling, rioting and assault are new.

The prisoners are running the asylum at SFSU…I was ambushed and physically hit twice by a man. This is proof that women need sex-protected spaces.

Still only further assures me I'm doing something right. When they want you silent, speak louder. 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/uJW3x9RERf

— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) April 7, 2023

Although the San Francisco Police Department eventually arrived on the scene to secure a safe passage for Gaines, no arrests were made.

With a few notable exceptions, like the local writer Michael Shellenberger, the outrage about the kidnapping was limited to people outside of the Bay Area. The self-proclaimed moderates went on discussing violence on San Francisco streets — an important topic, to be sure. They focused on the murder of tech executive Bob Lee and the assault by homeless drifters that left the former San Francisco fire commissioner Don Carmignani in the hospital with a skull fracture. Both are horrific instances of the increasingly common violence, in this case perpetrated against two prominent men. However, criminality, however dangerous, is secondary to political violence and  First Amendment rights.

Of course, many San Franciscans were vocally in support of the attack. Local Democrat political operative Tom Temperano (in a now-deleted tweet) congratulated his alma mater SFSU on running “virulently transphobic” Gaines whom he found “disgusting” off campus.

“So proud of the students at my alma mater @SFSU . I’m disgusted that a virulently transphobic person like Riley Gaines would be welcomed by anyone at State, but am sure her “crowd” is nothing compared to the actual crowd of students who support trans athletes. Go Gators.”

The following day he participated in the march in defense of drag queens’ “right” to perform in venues that don’t enforce cabaret licenses. No doubt, some of the individuals who made up the SFSU mob were also present in the drag march.

The San Francisco Chronicle, the city’s premier newspaper, ran a single article that mentioned the flagrant violation of Gaines’s right. It was an opinion piece about the Biden Administration’s effort to further trans issues that dedicated two paragraphs to the Gaines affair:

Their sense of alarm was heightened as an anti-transgender activist spoke a few buildings away on campus Thursday night. The speaker was Riley Gaines, a “cisgender” woman and former college swimmer who became a figurehead for groups opposed to trans-inclusive sports after she tied for fifth place with a trans woman in the 200-meter freestyle final at the 2022 NCAA swimming championships.

Gaines’ event, which was funded by the right-wing advocacy group Turning Point USA, was interrupted by dozens of protesting students. Gaines said she was assaulted, though videos of the incident on social media did not appear to show an assault. There were no arrests, according to campus police.

In other words, SF Chronicle implied that the athlete lied about being assaulted. The line of argument comes from social media where trans activists denied that the mob committed acts of violence. The video of the exact moment of the assault exists; it can be accessed from the Daily Mail.

Anti-free speech violence on college campuses is nothing new, and in SF State in particular hate and pro-terrorist sentiments have a long history. As far back as 1994, the university commissioned a mural featuring a Star of David with dollar signs. After the outcry, the university removed the image, but not without controversy. Back then, the discussion was about freedom of speech — remember the 90’s? Nevertheless, it was decided that the taxpayer shouldn’t foot the bill for antisemitic images.

In 2021, SFSU attempted to host Sami Al-Arian who in 2006 plead guilty to providing material support to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist organization. In 2020, SFSU featured the Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled who was involved in two hijackings in an event showcasing various anti-Israel figures. Both conferences were shut down by Zoom due to the speakers’ terrorist ties.

Responding to an inquiry about Khaled, the SFSU President Lynn Mahoney wrote:

San Francisco State University supports academic freedom, including the freedom to engage in intellectual debate, to express individual viewpoints, and to challenge the viewpoints of others without fear of retaliation or censorship.

How quaint. But while the university welcomes terrorists on the grounds of free speech and academic debate, political violence and the attempted use of heckler’s veto at SFSU are nothing new. For instance, in 2016 the pro-Palestinian mob disrupted the speech by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat. In 2016 a black woman attacked a white man for wearing dreadlocks.

Immediately after the Gaines kidnapping, Shellenberger conducted a brief interview with Mahoney. He pointed to the “Everyone is welcome here” poster with a portrait of a smiling visually Muslim woman on Mahoney’s door. The exchange him and Mahoney went as follows:

Me: I wanted to ask about the protest yesterday. One of the first things I saw when I walked in was a sign saying “Everyone is welcome here.”

Mahoney: And everyone *is* welcome here

Me: Even @Riley_Gaines_ ?

Mahoney: Talk to Kent Bravo

She then shut her office door behind her.

Her assistant gave me spox Kent’s contact info

Vice President for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management Jamillah Moore sent out a detailed statement about the kidnapping:

Diversity promotes critical discussions, new understandings and enriches the academic experience. But we may also find ourselves exposed to divergent views and even views we find personally abhorrent. These encounters have sometimes led to discord, anger, confrontation and fear. We must meet this moment and unite with a shared value of learning.

Thank you to our students who participated peacefully in Thursday evening’s event. It took tremendous bravery to stand in a challenging space. I am proud of the moments where we listened and asked insightful questions. I am also proud of the moments when our students demonstrated the value of free speech and the right to protest peacefully. These issues do not go away, and these values are very much at our core.

This feels difficult because it is difficult. As you reflect, process, and begin to heal[…]

If one wouldn’t know what happened, it would look like the campus was visited by Hitler and the understandably disturbed students behaved within the civilized norms of a democratic society.

But of course Gaines voices the common sense opinion foundational to every society on the planet. The opinion that men are men and women are women. SFSU, on the other hand, coddles terrorists and runs interference for political violence while telling the mob that their anger is wholly justified. The public university is transparently pursuing woke political agenda.

Holding a woman hostage for three hours should be a step too far even for San Francisco, but violence and bigotry are expected from SFSU. Everyone in the city knows that freedom of speech for all is not the sacred American value educational establishments promote. That battle was lost long ago.

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