Conservative Speaker Prevented From Addressing DePaul University Students By Activists As Campus Security Stands By

We have previously discussed the erosion of free speech on college and university campuses as students and faculty are punished for expressing views deemed offensive to any group. In the meantime, we have also seen protests by Black Lives Matter and other groups that silence other students with little response from university administrators. The videotape below captures this problem vividly. Conservative Milo Yiannopolous is often a lightning rod for such protests. However, it is not enough to protest outside. Students increasingly struck down events to prevent opposing views from being heard. In the case, two students shutdown the event as university security (paid by the event organizers) stand by and do nothing. It is a shocking scene for a university as student prevent a speaker from being heard because they disagree with what he has to say.

Student and church minister Edward Ward and a female colleague blew whistles and yelled to prevent Yiannopolous from speaking. Ward insisted that he was not trying to prevent free speech but rather “shutting down hate speech.” Of course, Ward decides what is hate speech, which seems to be most anything that he disagrees with. He explained

“But when it’s coming from a point of ignorance, when you make these blatant statements about feminists, when you make blatant statements about the LGBTQ community, when you make statements about black people – then it becomes a problem, because when you use this kind of hatred people like us end up dead. . . . You get Charleston. These are what you get as a result of his type of speech and rhetoric.”

Ward simply declares himself as the person who would decided what views would be allowed to be heard: “You have a bunch of white people who wanna actually say a bunch of racist shit and that’s not okay.”

At one point, the woman appears to actually physically threaten Yiannopolous with a slap or hit to the face.

Because the campus security refused to do anything, the audience was left chanting to the security “Do Your Job, Do Your Job.”

DePaul should not only discipline Ward and investigate the failure of the security to guarantee the basic protection for free speech on campus.

What do you think?