Conservative Law Students Get U. Miami to Pay Security Fee for Charles Murray Speech
“The University Conundrum: Free Speech or ‘Safe’ Speech?”
The school wanted the Federalist Society to pay over $7,000 for Murray’s speech. The students fought back.
The College Fix reports:
UMiami agrees to pay security fee for Charles Murray talk after pressure from conservative law students
The University of Miami attempted to charge the Federalist Society about $7,600 in security costs to host Charles Murray for an upcoming debate, but accusations of political bias by the organization succeeded in convincing administrators to pick up the tab, according to the student group.
The debate is titled “The University Conundrum: Free Speech or ‘Safe’ Speech?” Murray is scheduled to debate the topic with Mary Anne Franks, a law professor at University of Miami School of Law, later this month.
Initially, the Federalist Society was told it would have to pay $7,646 in security fees for it, according to its president, law student Stephen Smith. The Federalist Society is a conservative and libertarian organization, Smith told The College Fix.
In a letter to the dean of the law school, Patricia White, Smith and Alex Kiselev, vice president of the Federalist Society, argued the university was not being viewpoint neutral in its fee policy.
“Last year, the co-founder of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, Alicia Garza, gave multiple stand-alone lectures at our University…the BLM movement was developing into one of the most powerful and controversial interest groups our nation has seen in decades…[Garza’s] controversial nature is simply not debatable. Nonetheless, we are not aware of any security costs that were charged for her individual speaking events,” according to their letter.
“This event is a debate on free speech and academic freedom,” the two law school students added. “If it cannot be held at one of Florida’s most prestigious law schools, where can it be held?
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I wish more people in general and those that parrot baseless talking points would read at least the latter chapters of the Bell Curve. The work by Murray and his colleagues is not in the least racist of bigoted. Quite to the contrary and Murray in particular is very cautionary regarding the data and conclusions of this epic work.
It is great that Middlebury is paying the bill.