From U.C. Berkeley chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s latest statement:
Such a brutal and violent attack…calls upon us as an academic community to stop and ponder the climate in which such an act can be contemplated, even by a mind that is profoundly disturbed. A climate in which demonization of others goes unchallenged and hateful speech is tolerated can lead to such a tragedy. I believe that it is not a coincidence that this calamity has occurred in a state which has legislated discrimination against undocumented persons. This same mean-spirited xenophobia played a major role in the defeat of the Dream Act by legislators in Washington, leaving many exceptionally talented and deserving young people, including our own undocumented students, painfully in limbo with regard to their futures in this country.
The are two possible explanations:
1. Birgeneau believes there is evidence that Jared Loughner was somehow connected to anti-immigration activism. If so, Birgeneau simply hasn’t been following the news about which he has used the authority of his office to opine, or has been on the inside of a bubble that keeps out the plain facts of the shooting.
2. Birgeneau has seen the news and knows there is no connection, but believes Jared Loughner was incited to violence by a vague ethos of hatred that permeates Arizona. If so, that tells us more about Birgeneau’s prejudices and irrationality than Arizonans’.