In another year of “safe spaces” on college campuses and political correctness on steroids, prominent — often conservative — voices once again faced opposition for attempting to share a different point of view with America’s college students. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education tracked 29 separate attempts to protest or disinvite a guest speaker from coming to a campus.
Here’s a sampling of top individuals who faced the most outrage in their respective efforts to speak on college campuses this year:
1. Betsy DeVos
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was met with serious opposition at the University of Baltimore when she was invited to speak at their fall commencement ceremony. Students threatened a demonstration if the invitation was not rescinded. According to the Baltimore Sun, students saw DeVos as an enemy of public education. At Bethune Cookman University, a historically black university in Daytona, Fla., graduating students stood up and turned their backs on her.
2. Charles Murray
Political scientist and author Charles Murray was protested a number of times in 2017, including his speaking engagements at Middlebury College and the University of Notre Dame. At Assumption College, administrators caved to student pressure and disinvited Murray altogether. Murray told Vice News in an interview that he is now “especially eager to accept [invitations to speak],” in the name of encouraging other speakers not to back down.
3. Ben Shapiro
Political personality and conservative commentator Ben Shapiro was met with protests at Marquette University and at the University of Utah. When he was invited to speak at the University of California, Berkeley, administrators first told students they could not provide a venue for him, before ultimately spending $600,000 on security that resulted in the arrests of nine protesters.
4. Gavin McInnes
Co-founder of Vice Magazine, comedian, and YouTube personality Gavin McInnes was disinvited from DePaul University and run off stage by opposing students at New York University. The president of DePaul University addressed concerns in a letter to the student body, stating that the cancellation did not have to do with “the content of McInnes’ speech.”
5. Sen. John Cornyn
Texas Southern University canceled a scheduled commencement address by Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn after a change.org petition called the senator’s views discriminatory and not welcome at the historically black university.
“Every consideration is made to ensure that our student’s graduation day is a celebratory occasion and one they will remember positively for years to come. We asked Sen. Cornyn to instead visit with our students again at a future date in order to keep the focus on graduates and their families,” read a statement from the school.
What does this all mean?
Disliking speakers or disagreeing with them politically should not be grounds for silencing them or altering their message. It is important to acknowledge that some of these speakers may express abhorrent ideas and in allowing them to speak, the universities in no way endorse those ideas.
Organizations that work to advocate for First Amendment rights, such as FIRE and Young Americans for Liberty, do not endorse these viewpoints either. The only way to ensure that abhorrent ideas can be called out as such is to bring them into the light and subject them to the rigors of honest and open discourse. Censoring speech only serves to further polarize a conversation and makes those with unpopular opinions stick to their guns even further.
Disinviting speakers only serves to limit First Amendment rights on colleges campuses but unfortunately is not the only way free speech is restricted on campuses. Just a few weeks ago, Young Americans for Liberty filed a lawsuit against the Berkeley for refusing to recognize the YAL chapter because of their viewpoint. YAL members at Bunker Hill Community College were told they were not allowed to hand out copies of the U.S. Constitution without a permit. Kevin Shaw at Los Angeles’ Pierce College was told he could only hand out copies of the U.S. Constitution in the designated free speech zone.
Students face similar free speech restrictions on their own campuses to that of public speakers. The First Amendment is not a selective right, but a universal one that must be preserved and protected.
Correction: An earlier headline said the five named speakers had all been disinvited from campuses. Not all were disinvited; some were targeted by protests before or during their speeches. The body of the story has also been edited to reflect this distinction. Ben Shapiro was not disinvited from Marquette University or the University of Utah. Additionally, an earlier version of the story named the Dalai Lama as a speaker who was disinvited. He was not.
Richard Abel studies English at the University of Mary Washington. He is a Media Ambassador and a Chapter President for Young Americans for Liberty.
