The event, co-sponsored by the local College Republican and Turning Point USA chapter, resulted in a packed and enthusiastic crowd in Lisner Auditorium. Hundreds of students waited hours to get into the event. Kennedy later thanked the student groups for arranging the event.
The appearance of Kennedy on campus only strengthens the depth and breadth of discussions on our campus. Notably, he was not brought here by the university, but by student groups who wanted to hear his views on subjects ranging from his efforts to remove chemicals from our food to his past criticism of certain vaccines.
It is also valuable for students to exercise their rights in speaking against those views. For a night, GWU was a vibrant free speech forum with all sides represented on our campus, even if the university itself was not the instigator.
Yet, the petition drive is focused on the same demand for censorship and enforced orthodoxy that now characterizes so much of higher education. It is simply intolerable for many to have such opposing views expressed. The DSC and other groups want to prevent other students from hearing from Kennedy despite being one of the most important figures in health policy today.
The petition states, “We implore GW to bar RFK Jr. from speaking on our campus. Allowing him to do so would tarnish this university’s reputation, its commitment to science, and the promotion of health in this country and globally.”
So, they demand the right to protest against these views, but also demand that Kennedy and others be denied the right to express them.
The use of the ill-defined “misinformation” charge was telling. Rather than see these events as an opportunity to discuss and debate such issues, the protesters simply declare Kennedy to be the spreader of misinformation and call for him to be banned.
It is the same clarion call heard during the pandemic to silence dissenting voices.
Over the years, dissenting faculty members have been forced out of scientific and academic organizations for challenging preferred conclusions on subjects ranging from transgender transitions to COVID-19 protections to climate change. Some were barred from speaking at universities or blacklisted for their opposing views.
Many of the exiled experts were ultimately proven correct in challenging the efficacy of surgical masks or the need to shut down our schools and businesses. Scientists moved like a herd of lemmings on the origin of the virus, crushing those who suggested that the most likely explanation is a lab leak (a position that federal agencies would later embrace).
Scientists worked with the government in suppressing dissenting views. For example, The Wall Street Journal released a report on how the Biden administration suppressed dissenting views supporting the lab leak theory, as dissenting scientists were blacklisted and targeted.
When experts within the Biden Administration found that the lab theory was the most likely explanation for COVID-19, they were told not to share their data publicly and were warned about being “off the reservation.”
Universities and associations joined the crackdown citing disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation. (The Biden Administration defined malinformation as the use of facts in misleading ways).
Scientists questioning the efficacy of those blue surgical masks and the six-foot rule were suppressed. So were those arguing that we should, as in Europe, keep schools open. These experts were also later vindicated, but few were rehired or reestablished in universities or associations.
This intolerance for opposing views has continued as part of the culture of orthodoxy in higher education, as evidenced just yesterday with the petition.
It is to the credit of GWU that the school did not attempt to stop the event and ensured safety for all involved, from the speakers to the protesters.
What is chilling is the comfort that so many on this campus have with the open hypocrisy of demanding free speech in order to call for the denial of the same right to others.