The Women’s Center at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis has issued a far-from-subtle counterpunch in the ongoing hubbub over the upcoming campus appearance of conservative pundit Ben Shapiro.
Their weapon?
Scheduling a competing event whose title sends a crystal-clear message to students about how they should view Shapiro and the policies he promotes: “White Supremacy in the Age of Trump: An Anti-Racist Teach-In.”
One big problem: Shapiro isn’t a white supremacist. The New York Times best-selling author and editor-in-chief of the conservative news and opinion outlet The Daily Wire is a Jewish man who regularly speaks against racism in all its ugly forms.
The university’s Women’s Center has been alarmingly direct in its bias against Shapiro. “The Women’s Center claims that Shapiro has demonstrated a ‘racist indifference toward the pain and suffering of black and brown people,'” Campus Reform reported. The group also told Campus Reform, “The counter-event has received an ‘outpouring of support.'”
The history of Shapiro’s appearance — which hasn’t even occurred yet — is peppered with controversy.
One major point of contention arose when the university chose to sequester the February 26 event to a distant, limited-capacity, off-main campus location rather than one more centrally located and more easily accessible to the campus population that wanted to see the best-selling author speak.
University of Minnesota Twin Cities student organization Students for a Conservative Voice (SCV) originally requested the 1,126-seat capacity Ted Mann Concert Hall venue to accommodate Shapiro’s appearance, according to The Daily Wire. Upon discovering that the concert hall venue wasn’t available, they requested the 800-person capacity Willey Hall instead.
The venue the school eventually offered isn’t on the main campus at all. In fact, the 392-seat Continuing Education and Conference Center — which SCV declined based, in part, on the $5,000 price tag attached — is on what students refer to as the “cow campus,” due to its remote location, The Daily Wire reported.
At this point, Shapiro’s appearance is scheduled to take place on the St. Paul campus at the North Star Ballroom. This ballroom sports less than half the capacity of the Willey Hall venue, which is still available, The Daily Wire reported.
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Shapiro’s appearance is part of a nationwide campus lecture program by Young America’s Foundation (YAF). The YAF and the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) announced in The Daily Wire this week that they’re preparing a lawsuit against the school in response to alleged disparate treatment of conservative students on campus — as exemplified in the refusal to provide appropriate accommodations for the Shapiro event.
According to ADF’s letter to the school warning of a pending suit, “Here, the University of Minnesota is depriving SCV of their First Amendment right of expression by denying the group equal access to Willey Hall. The community’s potential reaction to SCV’s speech does not justify the university in restricting SCV’s speech. Listeners’ reaction to speech is not a content-neutral basis for regulation.”
Related: ‘Draconian’ Slap Against Campus Conservatives Leads to Lawsuit
The letter ends with: “On behalf of SCV, we demand that the University of Minnesota respect the First Amendment rights of all of its students, regardless of viewpoint, by allowing Ben Shapiro to speak in Willey Hall on Feb. 26, 2018, at 7:00 p.m. We also demand that this event be allowed to proceed without the imposition of a security fee based on the actions, or potential actions, of those critical of Mr. Shapiro and SCV. You are on notice of potential imminent litigation and are required to abide by all relevant preservation of evidence rules.”
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Michele Blood is a Flemington, New Jersey-based freelance writer and regular contributor to LifeZette.
(photo credit, homepage image: University of Minnesota, CC BY-SA 3.0, by BenFranske; photo credit, article image: University of Minnesota, CC BY-SA 3.0, by AlexiusHoratius)
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