It's good to see all of you here. Students, my faculty colleagues, administrators, everybody in and of the Berkeley community.

We are in a national emergency. A little over 60 years ago, some of you may remember being right here on Sproul Plaza at the beginning of the Free Speech Movement. That Free Speech Movement took over. It took over Berkeley. It took over America. It confirmed our commitment, not only as Berkeley students and administrators and faculty and this community, but as communities of learning across America. It confirmed our commitment to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, and freedom to learn what we wanted to learn.

The emergency right now is almost directly upon us. On Friday, as you know, one of the best, if not the best, private university in America or the world got a set of demands from the Trump regime that if it accepted that best or near best private university in America or the world would have lost its integrity, its own freedom, its own ability to govern itself. It would have succumbed and surrendered to the Trump regime. And what it did instead is it said no.

Now, if the best or near best private university in America or the world can say no, if it can defy the Trump regime, even at the expense, at a big expense, and I'll get into this in a moment, if it can do that, then the best public university in America and the world must do the same.

And make no mistake, that letter from the Trump regime is coming. It may come today or tomorrow or this week. It is coming to the Berkeley administration and it will have a list of demands. And Berkeley, if it is going to maintain its integrity and its independence, and it must, it must say no.

This is an issue that goes beyond issues of just academic freedom. It goes to the core meaning of freedom in this country. It goes to the essence of what we all believe about America. Because if the Trump regime can dictate to any university the terms on which its faculty or its students or its administrators or anybody in this community is going to function, then there is no limits to what that regime will do.

You cannot appease a tyrant.

Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of Britain, in 1939 tried to appease a tyrant. Guess what? It didn't work.

Columbia University tried to appease a tyrant. Guesswhat? It didn't work. Hey, tyrants. It doesn't work because you're feeding the tyrants. Some law firms tried to appease a tyrant. tyranny. The only way to deal with a tyrant is to deny the tyrant the ability to be tyrannical. Tyranny cannot exist unless people submit to it. And we are not going to submit.

Now, it's easy to say this, but to actually resist, to renounce, to say no, is costly. Columbia University and Harvard and other private universities that are resisting or have tried to resist certainly are facing major costs. But let me be very, very clear. The costs are worth it. It takes courage. It takes courage to resist tyranny. Courage is contagious. After Harvard stood up to the tyrant, guess what? Columbia, that had been surrendering to that tyrant, that Columbia just said, no, we have stopped surrendering. We now feel from courage. And there are a few courageous law firms that have said no to the tyrant. And they are summoning the courage of other law firms.

The test of this country is our ability to say no to tyranny and arbitrary authority, to say no to somebody who does not have any sense of limits in terms of power or need for subjugation, need for dominance, need to put other people down. This university is going to be at the lead of American public universities in saying to that tyrant, no.

I want to thank you all. But more importantly, I want to thank you for your courage, not just today. Again, it's easy today. But solidarity, the kind of solidarity we are feeling by being all together, solidarity breeds courage.

One of the reasons that so many people in this country are afraid right now, one of the reasons that so many international students are afraid to say what they think, one of the reasons that so many people are afraid that they might be even abducted and sent to a prison in El Salvador is because they feel a lack of solidarity. They feel that they are vulnerable. They feel that they and their liberties can be taken at any time. And their right, if there is no solidarity, if we are not protecting them, if we are not helping them, if we are not looking out for them.

So I thank you for your courage. I ask you to help Berkeley and its administration do the right thing. I ask you to help international students understand that we have their backs. Because if anybody is intimidated, if anybody feels they cannot speak or learn or teach or do what they want to doin terms of their intellectual life, none of us is safe. The truth is not safe. And I will say this about the administration's abduction of people without any due process, without any trial, without any judge overseeing it. If somebody can be abducted in the United States and sent to a brutal prison in another land, none of us, none of us is safe.

The next days and months and years will demand from all of us great courage and solidarity. Be prepared. Thank you. Thank you.