Student Protesters Shout Down Free Speech Event at SUNY Albany
“The protesters who stormed the Turning Point USA event on free speech at University at Albany proved my point: college campuses are where free speech goes to die.”
Student protesters at the State University of New York Albany shouted down an event at the school which was focused on free speech on campus.
This is just the latest in a string of campus shout-downs on college campuses in recent weeks.
Based Politics reports:
Unhinged campus mob SHOUTS DOWN conservative speaker Ian Haworth at SUNY Albany
When conservative commentator Ian Haworth showed up to speak at The State University of New York at Albany (SUNY Albany) on Tuesday evening, he had no idea what was about to hit him. Haworth’s talk, sponsored by Turning Point USA, was titled “Free Speech on Campus”—and an unhinged campus mob decided to show up and prove his point for him.
As shown in multiple videos from the event, angry students flooded the auditorium and chanted “F*ck TPUSA,” “Ian sucks,” “this is what queer rage looks like,” and “trans rights are human rights.” (Ian and TPUSA have both been highly critical of progressive positions on trans issues.) This was explicitly done to drown out the event and prevent Haworth from speaking.
“They basically proved my point for me,” Haworth told BASEDPolitics. “I showed up to the speech, I was waiting in a back room, and it got really loud. A socialist group on campus held a counter-protest downstairs—which is fine, that’s part of free speech—the issue is when they took over our auditorium, shouting into submission, hurling abuse at attendees.”
“I would’ve been delighted to talk with them afterwards, answer any questions,” he added. “But that wasn’t the goal, the goal was to shut down speech and force ideas off campus.”
The event was eventually able to continue, but it was significantly disrupted.
See the video below:
1/ Another day, another shoutdown on a college campus. FIRE is aware of reports that students at SUNY Albany disrupted a Tuesday event and shouted down its speaker because of his views on transgender issues. pic.twitter.com/GzJMtp1GXv
— FIRE (@TheFIREorg) April 6, 2023
2/ Videos show a group of students shouting and chanting in an attempt to prevent conservative columnist @ighaworth from giving his planned lecture, sponsored by Turning Point USA and titled, ironically, “Free Speech on Campus.”
— FIRE (@TheFIREorg) April 6, 2023
3/ This is a textbook example of the “heckler’s veto.” FIRE supports the rights of students to protest events they find offensive or objectionable. But when that protest substantially disrupts the original event, it crosses into censorship.
— FIRE (@TheFIREorg) April 6, 2023
4/ SUNY Albany’s response is insufficient. It’s easy to pay lip service to free speech. But as a public university, it is constitutionally required to act to protect its students’ expressive rights by addressing disruptions to their events as they occur.https://t.co/zOGmfYMPTY
— FIRE (@TheFIREorg) April 6, 2023
More video here:
“Trans rights are human rights!”
They didn’t bother to explain which rights they’re talking about…because that would involve actually having to think.@TPUSA pic.twitter.com/85DfTFznyk
— Ian Haworth (@ighaworth) April 5, 2023
FOX News has a statement from the school:
Fox News Digital reached out to both Haworth and SUNY Albany for comment, with SUNY Albany providing the following statement:
“Consistent with the mission of an institution of higher learning, we expect members of our community to be able to voice their views in a manner that promotes constructive dialogue and honors UAlbany’s commitment to freedom of expression,” the school said. “This is especially important when it involves speech that members of our community find offensive or objectionable.”
“Our constitutional obligation to protect speech, even when that speech fundamentally conflicts with our core values, is a pillar of our democratic system. We are equally committed to fostering an environment in which all students feel safe and included — and that the right to protest is also protected,” it added.
SUNY Albany pledged to help its community members understand their “rights and responsibilities under the First Amendment” and said all student organizations are entitled to reserve space and invite guest speakers “without interference.”
And a statement from the speaker, Ian Haworth:
“The protesters who stormed the Turning Point USA event on free speech at University at Albany proved my point: college campuses are where free speech goes to die. The protesters disrupted the event, abusing and insulting the TPUSA chapter, college staff, law enforcement and their fellow students, with one goal: to shut down speech. While I fully support their right to protest (even if their accusations of me being an infamous Jewish immigrant transphobic misogynistic KKK member are laughably inaccurate), the heckler’s veto is not free speech…and neither is destroying the property of TPUSA members!…
“Ultimately, this isn’t about me. I doubt these protesters even knew who I was prior to this event. In reality, it’s about any ideas that threaten the fascist ideology of leftism on campus. This unfortunate event proves the threat conservatives face every day on campus, and reinforces the truth that colleges have a duty to allow free speech and debate to flourish on campus.”
The one upside of protests like this one is that they weaken the case for ‘free’ college.
Taxpayers must not be asked to fund ‘free’ college tuition as long as half of the country is not welcome on college campuses.
Featured image via Twitter video.
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Comments
A ‘socialist group on campus’. An admitted socialist is nothing more than a Democrat who is honest.
But not quite ready to admit that they’re a communist.
Their actions speak for them.
Slightly less dishonest
The future is here.
That’s what Marxists do. Heard a commercial for a University of Mass, basically come join the Revolutionaries.
Today’s vile Dumb-o-crats are goose-stepping, brownshirted Maoist and National Socialist thugs and terrorists. They can chant all the Leftist slogans they want and display all their self-congratulatory, virtue-signaling signs — nothing changes the obnoxiously fascistic and totalitarian character of their bullying and violent antics.
Yet again we see it. In The Coming of the Third Reich, historian Richard J. Evans explains how, in the early days of National Socialist Germany, Stormtroopers (Brownshirts) “organized campaigns against unwanted professors in the local newspapers [and] staged mass disruptions of their lectures.” To express dissent from Nazi positions became a matter of taking one’s life into one’s hands. The idea of people of opposing viewpoints airing their disagreements in a civil and mutually respectful manner was gone. One was a Nazi, or one was silent (and fearful).
Today’s fascists call themselves “anti-fascists.” Just like the Nazis, they are totalitarian: they are determined not to allow their opponents to murmur the slightest whisper of dissent. Forcibly suppressing the speech of someone with whom one disagrees is a quintessentially fascist act.
Suggest a viewing of the video (30 minutes) Overview of America,
https://www.gaconstitutionparty.org/overview_of_america_cd2019
All three volumes of Richard J. Evans on the Third Reich should be a mandatory Freshman course (I would never have graduated college).
“Those Who Do Not Learn History Are Doomed To Repeat It.”
George Santayana
History not only rhymes, it repeats: ad infinitum. And we still don’t learn.
The vicious cycle of ignorance has become the vicious cycle of socialists.
If a University isn’t willing to REMOVE and really POLICE these venues
Why have them there?
Someone is going to get killed, some have been seriously injured
Remember, the Leftists have actual classes on this kind of behavior. There’s a legal point that they will go right up to and stop, because one more inch and they can be arrested and not get out. There’s a certain church in Topeka whose name shall not be mentioned (because they are rather extravagant in their suits) who protests at funerals and other events where they are just as offensive as possible within the law. Anybody who takes a swing at one of their members can expect to be sued, the businesses in the vicinity added, as well as the county, the police, anybody standing in the vicinity, and so forth. This is their income stream, and they’re always careful to get video to use in court.
These children are mere infants in the art. If the university follows their own rules and kicks them out without refund of tuition, they will get a real education in something we call ‘real life.’
Until we get juries that will make their own interpretation of the law, rather than believing a judge telling them that the assholes are in the right and the person trying fight them is in the wrong, we won’t deserve freedom from them.
They need some legal surprises!
More university not to hire from.
I don’t know if it’s the case any more, but the NY State colleges/universities used to be tuition free because they were exclusively dedicated to training teachers. If it’s still the case, it’s no wonder kids aren’t learning anything in school, with teachers like these.
So the university didn’t expel them, didn’t even punish them, talked about their need to feel included.
“F U SUNY Albany!” It even fits the rhythm.
“…he had no idea what was about to hit him…”
Uh, wut?? Unless this Ian guy popped out of the ether 5 minutes ago, how can anyone with a pulse NOT KNOW universities are hellscapes of intolerant, deranged, and violent marxist meat puppets??
Still & again, arrive with your own private security force or be savaged by these marxist meat puppets while campus police DO NOTHING.
A hecklers veto isn’t an exercise in free speech, it is an attempt to disrupt and/or prevent free speech. The taxpaying public should absolutely hold their State legislature accountable to ensure that Universities receiving taxpayer funds are held to account for refusing to prevent or mitigate effects to interfere, disrupt or prevent free speech and academic inquiry. Same for Congress.
Well, clearly those flying monkeys could use some education, as an educated climate of mind includes irony.
From John D MacDonald’s Reading For Survival
“…the educated climate of mind, a climate characterized by skepticism, irony, doubt, hope, and a passion to learn more and remember more.”
Backgrounder on the piece:
http://www.jdmhomepage.org/jdmhomepage.org/Reading_For_Survival.html
In ten years ,when these institutions are hosting tumbleweeds and begging for social amnesties, I hope the price of gasoline has come back down to the point where molotovs again become economical as considered responses.
This won’t stop until the people running the colleges are themselves replaced with people who will actually put a stop to the students who behave like this.
You can talk until you’re blue in the face about making students understand their rights and responsibilities but if you will never hold them accountable you’re essentially giving them permission to behave a certain way.