Ann Coulter made Berkeley blink on canceling her scheduled April 27 appearance, but blasted the announcement by chancellor Nicholas Dirks that the school now plans to re-invite the conservative pundit and author to speak on campus May 2 instead.
Noting that classes won't be in session that day, Coulter took to Twitter and in one tweet called a story about the announcement in the Daily Californian "fake news."
University officials had announced earlier this week that Coulter's April 27 speech would postponed and would likely be rescheduled in September. Coulter responded that she planned to keep her original date.
Student groups BridgeUSA and the Berkeley College Republicans had originally arranged for Coulter to speak, but Vice Chancellors Scott Biddy and Stephen Sutton sent an email to the College Republicans explaining the security risks were too great amid a recent spate of massive protests there.
"As the home of the Free Speech Movement, we fully support the right and ability of our students to host speakers of their choice," Dirks said at Thursday's news conference announcing the May 2 date, noted the Daily Californian. "We believe that exposing students to a diverse array of perspectives is an inherent and inseparable part of our educational mission."
Coulter flatly rejected the new date.
The San Francisco Chronicle confirmed the May 2 date falls in the university's "dead week," a period when no classes are held so students can study for final exams.
"It's at an awful time," Naweed Tahmas, of the Berkeley College Republicans told the Chronicle of the administration's revised date proposal.
Coulter reiterated that she still plans to speak on her original date.
In February, the university was forced to cancel Milo Yiannopoulous' speech after about 150 masked protesters threw Molotov cocktails at police, sparking fires, along with fireworks and rocks, reported CNN. They also smashed the windows of the campus's student union, causing overall damage totaling $100,000.