The Federalist Society at Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law invited Republican State Rep. Briscoe Cain to speak about his experiences in the Texas legislature. Unfortunately, a group of protesters took it upon themselves to decide Briscoe shouldn’t be allowed to speak.
KHOU News reported:
Protesters at TSU prevent state representative’s speechThere was controversy on the Texas Southern University campus right before the cancellation of one lawmaker’s speech Monday.After dozens of protesters filed into an event featuring House Representative Briscoe Cain, they wouldn’t allow Rep. Cain to speak, claiming he has ties to the Alt-Right and is anti-LGBT.Rep. Cain was invited to the Thurgood Marshall School of Law by the Federalist Society to talk to the students about the recent legislative special session. Instead, the event was shut down before it even started.“No hate anywhere, you don’t get a platform here!” protesters yelled inside the room.The words echoed through the classroom.“When a racist comes to town, shut him down,” they continued.That was the mission of the student protesters: shutting down Rep. Cain, who was invited on campus by student Daniel Caldwell.“It appears that many of you have comments, questions or concerns that you’d like to take up with him,” Caldwell said to the students while at the podium.No comments, questions or concerns were ever voiced, however. Rep. Cain tried to speak, but his words were lost below the chants.“No hate anywhere. You don’t get a platform here!” the chant continued.
Here’s a video of the protest:
University police removed the protesters from the room and Cain prepared to resume his talk.
Then something unexpected happened. University President Austin Lane entered the room, invited the protesters back in and claimed that the Federalist Society had not gone through the proper channels to invite a campus speaker. He then cancelled the event, drawing applause from the protesters.
Here’s what Lane said via the Coed Blog:
The university, however, has a right to regulate time, place, and manner. That’s something that universities have the right to always regulate, which is time, place, and manner, and that today has not been done. So that’s why this event will be cancelled until we have the appropriate [drowned out by applause]. So, again, we welcome free speech, but we need the ability to make sure we can handle whatever guest is coming here today.I appreciate — I didn’t know about it, and I just happened to be with another Senator here, Senator Boris Miles, we were out doing some other things early on. We were glad that we were able to meet, and I look forward to going out and talking with, is it Representative Cain? I look forward to talking with him as well to make sure that we all get on the same page. … We’ll go back to the drawing board to make sure that if in fact we have speakers that come in, and that’s fine, but we need to make sure that we regulate the time, place, and manner, and not the speech.Let me say that again because [something] a lot of people will pick that up. Universities can regulate time, place, and manner, and we have not done that today through our appropriate processes. … If there is another event that is scheduled to be here in the law school, in this particular room, then we need that to occur. … It’s my job to make sure that nothing, absolutely nothing, disrupts the academic environment.
Here’s the video of Lane’s remarks:
Two things are clear. The left doesn’t want to discuss ideas, they want to silence all perceived opponents. And university administrators are emboldening protesters by excusing their behavior.
Silencing the speech of others is not free speech. It is an aggressive act which stifles free speech.
Featured image via YouTube.
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