UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Benjamin Hermalin posted a note the next day on the university website expressing their “deep remorse and sympathy to those students and members of the public who were in the building, fearing for their safety.” 

They went on to say that, in the days ahead, they would “decide on the best possible path to fully understand what happened and why; to determine how we will address what occurred; and to do everything possible to preclude a repeat of what happened.”

Please. We know exactly how this eruption should be addressed. 

Any students who took part in the violence should be expelled—assault is a crime and most certainly violates the school’s code of conduct. As for the students who organized the shutdown but did not participate in the violence, they should be punished.

Everyone has a right to due process. But violent rioters have no place at any institution devoted to the fearless pursuit of truth. Certainly not at Berkeley, home of the Free Speech Movement.