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Protestors Bully Conservative Guest Speaker, President Not Happy

Protestors Bully Conservative Guest Speaker, President Not Happy
5/27/2016
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Susan Dutca-Lovell

One former and one current DePaul student disrupted a presentation at the school's student center earlier this week. One of them snatched the microphone from the interviewer and appeared to threaten the guest speaker, Milo Yiannopoulos, with it. The disturbance was reportedly due to the fundamental disagreement with the subject matter being presented, as it ran counter to that of the protesters who gathered outside prior to the event. However, only one arrest was made and it was not the protester who assaulted the young man interviewing Yiannopoulos, but rather the cameraman who was invited to film the event.

Hundreds of colleges and universities have restrictive speech codes that enforce political correctness and insulate their students from exposure to a lot of information, ideas, and opinions that may differ from that to which they have been exposed in their childhood. As evidenced by the recent shutdown of one conservative guest speaker's event hosted by DePaul's College Republicans at DePaul University, censorship in higher education is increasing at a considerable rate, apparently protecting those who demand that their voices be the only ones heard.

Milo Yiannopoulos, a Breitbart contributor and conservative commentator visited DePaul and spoke on issues of feminism, the transgender rights movement, campus politics, and microaggression. He spoke a solid 15 minutes before a whistle blew and a former DePaul student marched down the aisle to the front stage, and propped himself on the table between Yiannopoulos and the College Republican moderator. A current DePaul student joined shortly thereafter and the number of student protestors increased. One of the two student protestors who initially took the stage grabbed the microphone from the moderator and threatened Yiannopoulos with. Event organizers lost control of the event and it was ultimately cut short.

Spring, a time when most commencement speeches take place, is now referred to as "disinvitation season" in the world of higher education. Business leaders, politicians, authors and comedians are not welcome since social media has become home to endless arguments as to who is a worthy/appropriate/safe choice to deliver the speech. Professors have started to reconsider and restructure their courses in order to avoid sensitive and controversial topics. In response to the incident, DePaul University's President stated that he was "sorry to see” the video of the protest and news reports about it. In his statement he wrote, "Yesterday's speaker was invited to speak at DePaul, and those who interrupted the speech were wrong to do so.” He went on to say, "Universities welcome speakers, give their ideas a respectful hearing, and then respond with additional speech countering the ideas."

Do you think the protestors had the right to disrupt Yiannopoulos’ event? Should DePaul have done more to stop it? Leave us your thoughtful comments below.

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