Ben also warns Berkeley not to blame him for the increased security costs of the event, estimates of which now run to more than $600,000. In a speech last year, Shapiro only required two bodyguards, more or less SOP for campus appearances. This time around, the city and the university had to put police on full alert, thanks largely to the fact that — as Ben points out — they’d been ordered to stand down in the past. That only encouraged more lawlessness, Ben tells the audience, and he’s right.

He’s also right about the monetary costs of that strategy, the Los Angeles Times reported:

Give UC Berkeley’s new chancellor credit for trying to change the situation. Carol Christ only took that office two months ago, well after Antifa and other provocateurs got the school to enforce a heckler’s veto on other right-wing speakers such as Milo Yiannopoulos. Christ doesn’t agree with Shapiro, but calls the intimidation “a troubling situation”:

It doesn’t have to be troubling. Forty-eight years ago, Ronald Reagan diagnosed the problem perfectly. As long as the law goes unenforced, chaos and violence will reign. Berkeley apparently wasn’t bright enough to figure that out the first time around. There’s nothing wrong with lawful social protest, and nothing preventing it either, even when it’s misguided or idiotic. But the first time laws get broken, police need to make arrests and restore order — or else get ready to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every time a student group invites a speaker to campus.

If universities and colleges want to fix this problem, they can start by expelling students who commit violence or obstruct classes and speakers. If nothing else, that will limit the problems simply by dint of numbers, but more importantly will send a message pour encourager les autres: those who want an education are welcome, but those who want to impose a totalitarian regime on others can find somewhere else to organize. Do that a few times, and see how “troubling” your situations get.