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Liberals, Conservatives Clash After Republican Groups Invite Controversial Speaker To UC Irvine Campus For Non-PC Talk

IRVINE (CBSLA.com) —  Two conservative groups invited commentator Milo Yiannopoulos to the UC Irvine campus for a talk Thursday evening but with all the fireworks before the speech it looked and sounded more like the 4th of July.

The UCI Republican Club, along with the UCI Young Americans for Liberty, asked Breitbart.com editor Yiannopoulos, to talk to students. He's known for being non-PC.

The groups believe political correctness is stopping free speech on the campus.

He calls feminism and social justice "a cancer." In other interviews he's said he "chose" to be gay and mostly to upset his parents. He's also said  that it's white, straight men who are society's most maligned and put-upon citizens.

Liberal students -- reported KCAL9's Stacey Butler (@StaceyCBS)  -- weren't having it. Students, along wish some neighbors, clashed with conservatives wanting to hear the talk.

Orange County Sheriff's deputies and Irvine and Costa Mesa Police all showed up  in riot gear tried to keep the various groups apart but our cameras caught a few shoving matches.

"It's guys like me who are paying the taxes, to give them the right to be here," said one conservative, minutes after calling the liberal students -- many female, gay and lesbian -- "a bunch of brats."

As many protested outside the venue, about 200 conservatives lined up to hear Yiannopoulos.

"As you can see by his charts," said one fan, "he's getting a lot of popularity recently. And that's because people in America are waking up."

Another student countered that he thinks Yiannopoulos is just exploiting people filled with hate.

"I'm simply a student who has a problem with a person with so much hate speech coming to my campus, that I paid so much tuition towards, to feel safe on," said one student.

The Republican groups said Yiannopoulos was invited as pushback to the UC Irvine campus for what they call a liberal, politically correct culture.

 

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