Letter From YAF To UCLA Regarding Ben Shapiro Event

2596 South Lewis Way | Lakewood, CO 80227 | Tel: 303.292.
2021
October 16, 2024
Paula S. Kim
UCLA Office of Legal Affairs
Principal Campus Counsel
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1405
Via email delivery to [email protected]
Re: YAF Presents Ben Shapiro Event – October 21, 2024
Counsel,
I write to address a serious problem with the upcoming Ben Shapiro speaking
event to be held in the Ackerman Ballroom on October 21, 2024. While appearing to
approve the event, UCLA has created conditions that will seriously undermine its
effectiveness. We seek immediate permission to adjust the day-of-event procedures to
deal with this issue and to reasonably ensure a successful event.
Currently, tickets for Mr. Shapiro’s lecture are free and available on a first-
come, first-served basis to anyone who visits the UCLA Central Ticket Office (“CTO”)
website. A screenshot of the CTO website is attached as Exhibit 1 to this letter.
UCLA has capped the number of tickets that may be issued through the website at
room capacity (approximately 1,200 seats). This means that as soon as 1,200 free
tickets have been claimed, UCLA will stop issuing tickets.
As UCLA well knows, when free tickets are issued for public events, there are
invariably large numbers of last minute no-shows. After all, the tickets are free, and
potential audience members, having no skin in the game, often forget or opt to use
their time differently. In YAF’s past experience, people who obtain free tickets do not
always show up. Free public events typically see approximately 60% attrition.
Accordingly, it is highly likely that of the 1,200 tickets UCLA is currently issuing,
approximately 720 will end up not being used on the day of the event.
And this is the situation with respect to any free public speaking event. In the
specific circumstances here, the problem will be much worse. That is because Mr.
Shapiro has been targeted in the past by left-wing objectors to his point of view with a
strategy under which objectors rush to reserve as many free tickets as they can, with
no intention to use them on the day of the event, in a conscious effort to undermine
Mr. Shapiro. UCLA has no way of knowing how many of the 1,200 tickets currently
1
available will be taken in bad faith by objectors who lack any intention to show up on
October 21, 2024. Additionally, YAF has seen left-wing activists stage walkouts
several minutes into an event, leaving large blocks of seats empty.
Added together, these problems make it highly likely that, absent some
mechanism to address these concerns, Mr. Shapiro will speak to a room with
hundreds of empty seats, while many hopeful attendees are denied entry.
Fortunately, there is a simple, time-tested way of handling these issues: As is

done at every other university where Mr. Shapiro speaks, a simple method is to
create a standby line where individuals who seek to attend the event, but who were
unable to obtain one of the first 1,200 issued tickets, can wait in the vicinity of the
talk. After ticket-holders are admitted to the room (having, of course, passed through
security and any other reasonable pre-event processing), UCLA would simply
approximate the number of empty seats/unused tickets, and then admit that number
of individuals from the standby line. This process has been used hundreds of times at
scores of American universities. Standby line participants are invariably orderly and
respectful, and there has never been any security issue connected to a standby line in
all of the hundreds and hundreds of YAF-sponsored university events over the past
decades—not even once.
YAF has asked for permission to use the standby line procedure, but UCLA has
refused. When pressed, UCLA has not stated any reason whatsoever for this
unreasonable stance, other than to cite to its own policy number 862, which simply
states that for “major events,” (i.e., events presenting disfavored points of view that
may result in counter-protests), “[n]o standby line will be allowed unless advance
approval [is] provided by UCLA Fire Department and with limited standby Tickets
offered,” without providing any justification for this limitation or explanation as to
why approval has not been given in this particular case.
Given UCLA’s past conduct discriminating against the expression of

conservative and pro-Israel points of view, see Young America’s Foundation, et al. v.
Gene D. Block, et al., C.D. Cal. No. 2:24−cv−8507 ODW (AGRx), it is clear that the
refusal to approve the use of the standby line procedure exacerbates the
unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination that UCLA engages in. Moreover, UCLA
owes a constitutional duty to impose only reasonable time, place, and manner
restrictions on speech. There is nothing reasonable about UCLA’s refusal to approve
a procedure that has been used by all of its peers in the university community to
great effect, and without any appreciable harm to any university’s interests.
We request that you immediately approve the use of a standby line for the
October 21, 2024 Ben Shapiro event. We are, of course, happy to work out any
reasonable details on the specific structure of the line. Although it is completely
unnecessary since standby lines have never presented any difficulty, we would be
willing to cap the number of people allowed to stand by at 600 (approximately half
the Ackerman Ballroom capacity). We are also willing to discuss locating the standby
line outside the Student Union building itself or to take other precautions. We stress
2
that no such precautions have ever been necessary in any of the other hundreds of
instances YAF has used standby lines, but are willing to consider them simply to get
this long-delayed project over the finish line.
Please let me know no later than close of business tomorrow, October, 17, 2024
whether UCLA will agree to a standby line. YAF reserves all of its rights in this
matter. If you do not agree, YAF may be forced to seek immediate relief from the
court.
Thank you for your time. You can reach me by phone directly at 720-640-8699.
/s/ James Kerwin

James Kerwin, Senior Attorney
William Trachman, General Counsel
MOUNTAIN STATES LEGAL
FOUNDATION
2596 S. Lewis Way
Lakewood, CO 80227
(303) 292-2021
[email protected]
[email protected]
cc: Meghan VerGow, O'Melveny & Myers LLP, [email protected]

Matthew Cowan, O'Melveny & Myers LLP, [email protected]
Anton Metlitsky, O'Melveny & Myers LLP, [email protected]
Jennifer B. Sokoler, O'Melveny & Myers LLP, [email protected]
David Cohen, O'Melveny & Myers LLP, [email protected]

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2596 South Lewis Way | Lakewood, CO 80227 | Tel: 303.292.

October 16, 2024

Via email delivery to [email protected]

Re: YAF Presents Ben Shapiro Event – October 21, 2024

Fortunately, there is a simple, time-tested way of handling these issues: As is

Given UCLA’s past conduct discriminating against the expression of

/s/ James Kerwin

cc: Meghan VerGow, O'Melveny & Myers LLP, [email protected]

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