Ann Coulter’s backers at Berkeley file lawsuit 
 
 A UC Berkeley student group filed a federal lawsuit Monday accusing the university of unconstitutionally censoring conservative speech, days after administrators said they could not safely accommodate right-wing commentator Ann Coulter on campus this week. 
 
 Coulter, an author and television commentator, was invited by the Berkeley College Republicans and the nonpartisan BridgeUSA to speak on campus Thursday night. But campus officials said they could not ensure the safety of those who attended because police had learned of threats of violence by both opponents and supporters of Coulter. 
 
 The school offered to schedule her talk for September, and when Coulter refused, the university offered a 1 p.m. appearance on May 2. Coulter again declined, saying she was busy that day. She noted the date was part of the week before final exams, known as Dead Week, when classes are suspended and students are taking time off to study. 
 
 FILE - In this Feb. 12, 2011 file photo, Ann Coulter waves to the audience after speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington. University of California, Berkeley students who invited Coulter to speak on campus filed a lawsuit Monday April 24, 2017, against the university, saying it is discriminating against conservative speakers and violating students’ rights to free speech. Campus Republicans invited Coulter to speak at Berkeley on April 27, but Berkeley officials informed the group that the event was being called off for security concerns. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File) less FILE - In this Feb. 12, 2011 file photo, Ann Coulter waves to the audience after speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington. University of California, Berkeley students who ... more Photo: Cliff Owen, Associated Press Photo: Cliff Owen, Associated Press Image 1 of / 48 Caption Close Ann Coulter’s backers at Berkeley file lawsuit 1 / 48 Back to Gallery 
 
 The offer was a “sham” because of the timing and because the university, for purported security reasons, was refusing to make large on-campus buildings available for the talk, lawyers for Young America’s Foundation, the sponsor of Coulter’s planned speech, and Berkeley College Republicans said in its U.S. District Court lawsuit. 
 
 At the same time, the suit noted, UC Berkeley has recently allowed speakers invited by liberal students — including former Mexican President Vicente Fox, a critic of President Trump’s immigration policies — to appear without similar time-and-place restrictions. Those speeches took place without incident. 
 
 Coulter has said she will speak at Berkeley on Thursday regardless of the university’s position because she has a contract. 
 
 “I’m showing up this Thursday,” she said in a Fox News interview Saturday evening. “It’s up to the police to keep me safe.” 
 
 At a news conference Monday, Harmeet Dhillon, lawyer for the groups that filed the suit, said the College Republicans would likely decide by Thursday whether to host the speaker that day. 
 
 Anticipating Coulter’s appearance, the International Socialist Organization called Monday for its members to protest “peacefully” by picketing outside the event and “challeng(ing) the narrative inside.” 
 
 Dhillon accused university officials of adopting an unwritten policy that allows administrators to place restrictions on “high-profile” conservative speakers. The restrictions include scheduling their talks at far corners of the campus during class time and saddling the sponsoring groups with unreasonably high security costs, she said. 
 
 The lawsuit said university officials “could have taken appropriate security measures to ensure the safety of those attending conservative speaking engagements — as is their duty to all students on campus — but they have refused to do so.” 
 
 It said UC officials and police “have permitted the demands of a faceless, rabid, off-campus mob to dictate what speech is permitted at the center of campus during prime time.” 
 
 That was a reference to the violence that led UC Berkeley to cancel a scheduled Feb. 1 appearance by another far-right speaker, Milo Yiannopoulos, at the student union. The College Republicans said they also had to cancel an April 12 appearance by conservative writer David Horowitz because the university scheduled his appearance before 3 p.m. at a building more than a mile from the center of campus. 
 
 In response, UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said the university has applied its policies evenhandedly. 
 
 “We’ve had a wide range of speakers across the political spectrum,” including many speakers sponsored by the Young America’s Foundation, Mogulof said. “Never in anyone’s memory has so much staff time been devoted in trying to facilitate an event as in this instance.” 
 
 Coulter is “welcome on this campus, but at a time and place when police say, ‘Yes, we can provide security,’” Mogulof said. “We don’t have a protectable venue” available Thursday. 
 
 The lawsuit seeks damages and a court order prohibiting “any unwritten or unpublished policy restricting the exercise of political expression on the UC Berkeley campus.” 
 
 Bob Egelko and Michael Bodley are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com, mbodley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko, @Michael_Bodley 

 BERKELEY, Calif. (Reuters) - Conservative commentator Ann Coulter said she had scrapped plans to speak on Thursday at the University of California at Berkeley in defiance of campus officials, who had barred her original engagement this week out of concerns about inciting violent protests. 
 
 Political commentator Ann Coulter speaks during the "Politicon" convention in Pasadena, California, U.S. June 25, 2016. REUTERS/Patrick T. Fallon 
 
 Coulter, one America’s best-known and most polarizing pundits on the political right, cast blame on conservative student organizers who withdrew their invitation following their dispute with university officials. 
 
 “There will be no speech,” Coulter wrote in an email to Reuters on Wednesday. “I looked over my shoulder and my allies had joined the other team. 
 
 “I have no sponsor, no lawyer, no court order,” she said. “I can’t vindicate constitutional rights on my own.” 
 
 Coulter is the second right-wing speaker whose Berkeley appearance was scrubbed over security concerns. In February protesters started fires, broke windows and clashed with police, forcing Milo Yiannopoulos, then a senior editor for the conservative Breitbart News website, to call off his appearance. 
 
 Coulter said she might still visit Berkeley, long a bastion of liberal student activism, to meet with supporters on Thursday, the day she was originally slated to speak, but would not deliver an address on campus. 
 
 Social media feeds of militant left-wing and right-wing activists remained abuzz with vows to proceed with the demonstrations and counter-demonstrations that had been expected to accompany a Coulter appearance. 
 
 Campus officials said they were continuing to brace for unrest they see as likely on Thursday. 
 
 “Many of the individuals and organizations which planned to protest Ann Coulter’s appearance or support it still intend to come to campus,” UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said. 
 
 He said the Berkeley College Republicans erred by inviting Coulter without notifying campus officials in advance, as is required of all student groups, and failing to submit to a “security assessment” to determine a suitable time and place for the event. 
 
 He denied that Coulter was unwelcome because of her political positions. 
 
 University officials last week rejected the original Coulter date on grounds they lacked a safe campus venue to host her speech on that day, citing the violence by left-wing protesters over Yiannopoulos’ scheduled appearance. 
 
 The university later proposed that Coulter’s speech be moved to next Tuesday. Coulter said she could not make it then and accused the school of trying to limit her audience by choosing a date that fell in a study week ahead of final exams. 
 
 After insisting she would go through with her speech on Thursday, with or without university approval, Coulter changed her mind as support from student organizers collapsed. 
 
 College Republicans spokesman Naweed Tahmas accused university officials of “refusing to ensure the safety of all students” and thus infringing on free-speech rights, as claimed in a lawsuit that sponsors of the event filed in federal court on Tuesday. 
 
 (This version of the story corrects spelling of name Naweed Tahmas in final paragraph)
– And it's off ... again. Ann Coulter says she is canceling a speech at UC Berkeley that had been planned for Thursday. The move comes after Coulter was initially angry at Berkeley for canceling the speech because it said a "protectable venue" was not available, then still angry at the California university after it offered her a different speaking date. She said she was determined to keep the original date despite the security concerns, but she now tells Reuters that two conservative groups who were originally sponsoring her speech have backed out. "I looked over my shoulder and my allies had joined the other team," she wrote, adding that she may still visit the campus Thursday. The two sponsors of the event, Berkeley College Republicans and Young America's Foundation, filed a lawsuit Monday accusing the university of unconstitutionally censoring conservative speech by refusing to make certain buildings available for the speech and refusing to provide appropriate security measures, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. On Tuesday, Young America's Foundation said in a statement that because the university had not assured the group that campus police would protect attendees from violent protests if they arose, it could not sponsor Coulter's speech. Berkeley denied that charge.