A conservative student group accused the University of Minnesota of perpetuating “cancel culture” in a lawsuit over a 2018 speech the commentator Ben Shapiro gave on the school’s St. Paul campus.
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA SUED OVER BEN SHAPIRO EVENT
In arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, attorneys for Shapiro, Young America’s Foundation, and Students for a Conservative Voice claimed that, in using its “large events policy” to move Shapiro’s speech from Minneapolis to the smaller St. Paul campus, the school had suppressed the group’s free speech.
“Free speech is facing new and dangerous attacks all across the country, but especially on university campuses. Overreaching officials and cancel culture threaten to erode our pluralistic society,” said Jake Warner, legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization representing YAF and Shapiro.
Warner argued that the school was biased against Shapiro and conservative viewpoints because it had expressed fears of security concerns before Shapiro spoke, an uncommon reaction to public figures coming to campus. Warner said that the school had not reacted as strongly when other student groups invited liberal activist Shaun King and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar to speak on campus, even though both drew outsize crowds, which posed potential security concerns.
Shapiro and the student groups took the case to a federal district court shortly after the incident. A judge last year ruled against them, writing that, by moving the event, school officials put “reasonable restrictions in place to ensure the event was secure.”
During arguments on Tuesday, several judges said that the fact that the event was also livestreamed could have some bearing on whether or not they decide if Shapiro and the student groups’ speech were restricted.
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Kara Zupkus, a spokeswoman for YAF, said that through the incident, the school had “deprived its student body of an intellectually diverse learning environment.”
“YAF remains committed to the First Amendment and holding administrators accountable for their unconstitutional censorship of conservative students at the University of Minnesota and across the nation,” she said.
