The controversy over scholar Christina Hoff Sommers’ lecture at Georgetown University last week is not over.
Lauren Gagliardi, the school’s assistant director for the center for student engagement, emailed two members of the College Republicans to request they edit the video to remove students who did not agree to be videotaped.
In the email, provided to the Washington Examiner, Gagliardi tells the students that the “edited version needs to be released without students who did not give permission to be taped.” She also says that if the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, which sponsored the event, is “unwilling or unresponsive to the request, Georgetown will need to step in.”
The video that has Gagliardi so upset features feminist activists holding up signs accusing Hoff Sommers of being an anti-feminist or deny rape.
Laurel Conrad, the lecture director for CBLPI who helped organize the event, explained the situation over at Legal Insurrection.
“[I]t stretches credulity that Georgetown and its students would not understand that the lecture was a public event,” Conrad wrote. “The video camera was in plain view, and audience members themselves appear to be taking video and photos. It could not shock any student that he or she was on camera.”
Conrad added: “In addition, the mission of the protestors at the event was clearly to gain attention. Perhaps we are receiving this request because the students were too successful at gaining attention, and are now embarrassed at the reaction to signs like ‘Trigger Warning — antifeminist.’ ”
Conrad also called the protest a “public relations nightmare” for Georgetown, as the “childish behavior” toward Hoff Sommers was featured on Fox News and in other right-leaning news outlets.
CBLPI Founder and President Michelle Easton released a statement regarding the request, asking if the university was embarrassed by its students’ behavior.
“I am surprised to hear that Georgetown University wants the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute to edit the video. Once a video is uploaded to YouTube, we can’t edit it,” Easton said. “Could it be that the university is trying to conceal the embarrassing behavior and declarations of its feminist students at our lecture? Dr. Sommers’ lecture was a public event, and the camera was in plain view. Surely the university understands that.”
Gagliardi did not immediately respond to an Examiner request for comment. This post will be updated if she responds.
This article has been updated to reflect the fact that Laurel Conrad is not a Georgetown student.
