Conservative groups that accused UC Berkeley of discriminating against their campus speakers dropped their lawsuit Monday, while the university agreed not to charge fees or relocate speeches based on the speaker’s viewpoint — a policy that school officials said they have always followed.

The settlement includes a $70,000 payment by the university to the plaintiffs, the Berkeley College Republicans and Young America’s Foundation, for their attorneys’ fees. Those fees usually indicate that one side has achieved some of its goals in the case, but UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said it was a fraction of the normal fee award and reflected an agreement that left school policies largely unchanged.

The settlement means the university will not have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars “to prove that UC Berkeley has never discriminated in the basis of viewpoint,” Mogulof said.

But Young America’s Foundation, the private organization that funded the lawsuit, called the settlement a “landmark victory for free expression” that means the university “can no longer wantonly treat conservative students as second-class members of its community.” And the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Harmeet Dhillon, said the suit had forced UC Berkeley to change its policies on controversial speakers.

The suit was filed after two conservative commentators, Ann Coulter and David Horowitz, canceled their speeches in the spring 2017, citing campus officials’ decisions to move their planned evening talks to daytime hours at buildings far from the center of campus. A third conservative, radio host Ben Shapiro, spoke at the school in September 2017 after paying a security fee that was challenged in the suit.

The plaintiffs said UC Berkeley set no such restrictions for liberal speakers. School officials said their regulations were based on security, not ideology.

Earlier, a February 2017 campus speech by far-right firebrand Milo Yiannopoulos was canceled after a student demonstration against him was taken over by masked protesters who smashed windows and set fires. Yiannopoulos then spoke for a few minutes on campus in September 2017 in an event that conservatives had promoted as “free speech week.”

U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney of San Francisco initially dismissed the groups’ claims of viewpoint discrimination against UC Berkeley, but ruled in April that they could try to prove bias in the relocation of high-profile speakers.

She noted that the university had charged a $9,162 security fee for Shapiro’s talk, compared to $5,000 for a 2011 speech by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor at the same location. Mogulof, the campus spokesman, said UC Berkeley had spent more than $600,000 on additional security for Shapiro’s appearance.

Under the settlement, negotiated with the help of a federal magistrate, planned “major events” on campus — those that raise safety or security concerns or are expected to draw 300 or more people — will require the sponsoring groups to obtain insurance and, in some cases, search those in attendance. Those groups will be charged security fees only if the event is in a major performance venue, such as Zellerbach Hall, and not for talks in classrooms or a building affiliated with the student union.

The settlement also prohibits UC Berkeley from charging security fees based on concerns that the “viewpoints, opinions, or anticipated expression” of the speakers or their sponsors “might provoke disturbances.” Mogulof said the university has never imposed such fees and would be constitutionally prohibited from doing so.

Dhillon, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, said that in the past, protesters “were making threats, causing security to impose exorbitant fees,” which now would be paid by the university under the settlement.

Mogulof said a similar policy has been in effect since at least January. He said nine conservative speakers have appeared on campus this year without any security charges to the student sponsors, because the talks occurred in a classroom or a student union building.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@BobEgelko