Dennis Prager shouldn’t be considered a controversial speaker. He simply espouses opinions about socialism that today’s college campuses would rather not have students hear.
From The College Fix:
A conservative campus group at the University of Wyoming has had its ability to receive funding from its school coffers yanked just weeks after hosting conservative pundit Dennis Prager.
The group, Turning Point USA, was accused by the student government’s finance committee of not following campus policy in hosting the Nov. 9 event and has since been suspended from requesting funding until 2019, the Branding Iron campus newspaper reports.
The pro-capitalism student group was accused largely of minor procedural infractions: not properly labeling its posters, not using an approved ticketing method for the event, and “providing food unauthorized by UW Risk Management,” the Iron reports.
While student campus leaders blamed procedural errors for their crackdown, it’s clear the event was highly controversial and prompted protests as left-leaning students were upset their student fees supported a conservative speaker.
These “minor infractions” combined with the large punishment sure seem like a smokescreen for shutting down speech:
Even prior to Prager’s speech, titled “Socialism Makes People Selfish,” a student government diversity leader had vowed to work “tirelessly” to shut it down.
Hunter McFarland, director of diversity for the university’s student government, had told The College Fix she wanted Prager’s talk to be canceled because he “is an anti-academic, rape advocate who spews hate speech against Muslims, Black people, Latinas, and many other groups who deserve to be protected at the University of Wyoming.”
Prager doesn’t spew hate speech. He’s just critical of Leftist talking points and MOs, including their tactic of labeling all criticism “hate speech.”
And responding to calling him a “rape advocate” wasn’t worth the time it took me to write this sentence.
A student government diversity leader made a point to work “tirelessly” to shut down a talk that had nothing to do with diversity — except, of course, intellectual diversity. That raises a big red flag about the later punishment, especially with the stated violations of minor procedural mistakes that seem frankly ridiculous in the first place.
It seems pretty obvious they are being penalized for being conservatives on a college campus. Nothing more, nothing less.
This is hardly the first instance of administrators lashing out at students who refuse to toe the progressive line by any stretch of the imagination. But I doubt Turning Point USA will back down.
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