Scott Adams, the East Bay-based creator of the syndicated comic strip “Dilbert,” isn’t happy with his alma mater UC Berkeley following last week’s violent campus protests in response to a scheduled appearance by right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.
On his blog, Adams announced last week that he, too, doesn’t feel “safe or welcome on campus” because of his political views, so he said he would no longer support the public institution where he earned his MBA.
“I have been a big supporter lately, with both my time and money, but that ends today,” he wrote. “I wish them well, but I wouldn’t feel safe or welcome on the campus.”
Over the course of the presidential election, Adams provoked controversy and alienated “Dilbert” fans with his essays and tweets, the Washington Post reported in late October. He praised Donald Trump’s talent for persuasion, was one of the few public figures to predict the celebrity mogul’s presidential victory and continues to dispute the tendency on the left to compare the president, with his perceived autocratic tendencies, to Adolf Hitler.
At one point, Adams endorsed Trump, saying he only ever endorsed Clinton out of concern for his “personal safety” because he lives in California. But he switched his allegiance to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson following the leak of the 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump was heard boasting about groping women. Adams called both Trump and Clinton “100 percent unfit for office” and said neither candidate represented his political views.
WIth regard to the protests at Berkeley, Adams said he had decided to side “with the Jewish gay immigrant who has the African-American boyfriend,” referring to Yiannapoulos, rather than the “the hypnotized zombie-boys in black masks who were clubbing people who hold different points of view.”
Adams said that a Berkeley professor “made it clear” to him that he wouldn’t be welcome on campus, and he expressed concern that someone might club him “to death” if he were to walk on campus.
Yiannapolous, a senior editor for Breitbart, the conservative site often associated with “alt-right” viewpoints, was scheduled to speak at UC Berkeley last Wednesday night as part of his “Dangerous Faggot” tour of college campuses.
Many faculty and students opposed him coming to campus, saying he was using his tour to antagonize people on the left by espousing offensive, derogatory views on women, Muslims, minority students, transgender people and other groups.
Before Yiannapoulos’ scheduled appearance, some 1500 people gathered outside the student union to peacefully protest. But at one point, a splinter group of people, wearing all black clothing, launched fireworks at police on a second-floor balcony. A light generator was knocked down and set ablaze.
The violence prompted administrators to cancel the event. But Yiannopoulos announced over the weekend, via Facebook that he has plans to return to Berkeley.
Martha Ross is a Bay Area News Group columnist
