On Monday, acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan was scheduled to speak at Georgetown University Law Center, where I attend school, for a conference focused on immigration law and policy. McAleenan presides over the DHS, a department that has received plenty of criticism in recent years, and it wasn’t a popular decision to invite him to campus. But it seems entirely reasonable to include the head of the DHS in the conference because he is, after all, in a prime position to actually affect immigration policy.

This reality is apparently irrelevant for the irate mob of students that shouted him down and tried to prevent him from speaking altogether. Despite multiple pleas for the students to halt their protests, these students persisted until McAleenan eventually decided to leave, leading to no conversation and no question-and-answer session.