Leftists recently attacked and destroyed a display assembled by Turning Point USA for students at the campus of the University of California-Davis.
While cops stood by and watched.
Our “Prove Me Wrong” tabling event with @TheOfficerTatum at UC Davis was completely destroyed by violent protesters.
They stole the canopy, ripped down banners, smashed foam boards, and even tried to steal the iPad and laptop of a @tpusastudents field rep.
TPUSA students were… pic.twitter.com/VlBVOxX6ZU
— Turning Point USA (@TPUSA) April 3, 2025
TPUSA said, “Our ‘Prove Me Wrong’ tabling event with @TheOfficerTatum at UC Davis was completely destroyed by violent protesters. They stole the canopy, ripped down banners, smashed foam boards, and even tried to steal the iPad and laptop of a @tpusastudents field rep. TPUSA students were shoved and had objects thrown at them—while police did nothing. Only after the damage was done did law enforcement finally form a perimeter. This is the reality of free speech on campus.”
And constitutional expert Jonathan Turley, who has advised Congress on the Constitution, even represented Congress on constitutional issues, had a comment: “A mob of roughly 30 masked protesters at UC Davis attacked a tent for a conservative student group, the UC Davis chapter of Turning Point USA. It proceeded to destroy the tent and displays without any intervention from campus police, who were shown standing nearby.”
He noted the police “followed the rampaging mob and did not attempt to detain anyone. The mob appears to have been led by Antifa members, a violent anti-free speech group.”
He continued, “The university said in a news release that it is investigating. However, the university insisted, ‘The event with the guest speaker took place on schedule and was completed without further incident. The university protected the free speech rights of the campus community throughout the event. ‘Without further incident’ has that feel of asking ‘other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?’”
He wondered if the school will review “why the campus police stood and watched these protesters assault students and tear down a tent without trying to detain a single person.”
He warned, “Political violence from the left is on the rise across the nation, fueled by the rage rhetoric of Democratic leaders and commentators.”
And he said Antifa is a threat to free speech.
“Some Democrats have played a dangerous game in supporting or excusing the work of Antifa. Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison, now the Minnesota attorney general, once said Antifa would ‘strike fear in the heart’ of Trump. This was after Antifa had been involved in numerous acts of violence and its website was banned in Germany,” he said.
In fact, Ellison’s son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, “declared his allegiance to Antifa in the heat of the protests this summer,” Turley noted.
To such leftists, he said, free speech is “merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.”
He warned that events like those at UC-Davis “will only encourage further attacks.”