Found a report from FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) that broke down speaker fees. Turns out the most expensive ones arent even the far right guys. Ben Shapiro got like $50k but some corporate diversity speakers pull in $100k+. The wild part is that schools with the most protests often pay the most. My school spent $15k on a speaker last semester then had to spend another $8k on security. Does your college release the numbers on what they pay?
At Ohio State last semester I went to see a conservative commentator speak. Before he even got to the podium a girl screamed "you're not welcome here" and the organizers just ended it. I stood up and told them to let him talk since we all paid to be there. They called security on me instead of the person who yelled. Has anyone else seen a whole event get killed by one loud person?
I was helping a friend apply for jobs at a marketing firm in Austin last month. He listed his position as treasurer for a student group that invited Ben Shapiro to campus in 2023. The manager literally chuckled and set that resume aside. It made me wonder how much these speaker controversies actually follow people after graduation. Has anyone else seen a club membership on a resume hurt someone's chances?
I went to a talk by a guy who says global warming is a hoax and was shocked that 40% of the 200 students in the room actually clapped for him. The whole thing felt like watching someone sell fake medicine to a crowd that should know better. How do you balance letting a controversial speaker on campus when their ideas could actually confuse people about science?
Last month at State U here in Ohio, the student group invited someone who says the Holocaust didn't happen, and the dean blocked it three days before the event. A bunch of us were split between wanting him to speak for free speech and thinking it was too harmful. What would you have done if you were in that situation?
I was digging through old news articles about the Berkeley protests and finally found the actual email chain from the student group that invited him. Turns out the administration pulled the invite because of a security cost estimate of $600,000, not because of what he was going to say. Took me way longer than it should have to find that detail buried in a public records request. Has anyone else run into hidden financial reasons behind a speaker getting cancelled?
I would vent on Twitter for maybe 5 minutes and get zero traction. After the Charles Murray thing at Middlebury in 2017, I started writing actual letters to my state representative with specific dates and names of banned speakers, and got a reply from his office within 2 weeks. Has anyone else tried contacting local officials instead of just posting online?
Our student group paid $3,000 to bring in a guy known for controversial immigration takes, and half my friends wanted to shout him down while the other half said that gives him more attention. What do you all think, is protesting these speakers worth it or does it just make them bigger?
I was supposed to talk at State College in Ohio about working in trades vs college. They saw my speech outline and said it was too 'anti-academic'. I drove 3 hours to get there and they canceled on me in a parking lot. Has anyone else had a college pull a bait and switch like this on a speaker?
I accidentally blocked in a student organizer's car during the pre-talk setup and she got so mad she had the whole event cancelled. Learned that campus parking logistics can derail free speech faster than any protest.
I took a course on free speech in America back in 2019 at a small college in Ohio. Our professor invited a man who publicly denies the Holocaust to debate a Jewish historian. About 40 students walked out during his opening statement, but 20 of us stayed to listen. One girl in the front row started crying and shouting at him to leave, but the professor let him finish his 45 minute talk. I keep going back and forth on whether that was the right call. Should a college let someone with hateful views speak if it means some students feel unsafe in the room?
Three years ago at my school in Ohio, the student government voted to disinvite Jerry Seinfeld because some students said he was a zionist. I wasn't a big fan of his politics or anything, but I thought it set a bad rule. If you can ban a comedian who tells jokes about airplane food, where does it stop? Last month we had a speaker on climate policy who got protested off stage. I'm just asking what the line is supposed to be now.
Last semester at Ohio State I was panicking about a midterm and asked my poli sci professor for study tips, and she just said 'the answer's in the syllabus, read it carefully.' I blew it off until I actually dug in and found she'd listed every major theme and even sample questions right there, and my grade went from a C to a B+. Has anyone else had a controversial speaker make a point that actually held up under scrutiny, even if you didn't agree with them at first?
I invited a free speech activist to speak at our college and the dean was fine with it, but somehow the real controversy was whether we could reserve the auditorium without buying an extra parking pass for the speaker's van, has anyone else run into absurd bureaucratic barriers like this?
I help organize the speaker series at a community college in Ohio. Last semester we booked a guy who does a lot of conservative campus talks. A couple students from our philosophy club sat me down and pointed out his debating style just steamrolls people, doesn't actually engage. They weren't mad about the viewpoint, they just wanted a real discussion. I ended up canceling him and bringing in someone who does a Q&A format instead. Felt like a small victory for how we handle these things. Anybody else tweak your speaker selection based on feedback from students?
So back in March, my college's Young Americans club booked this former governor from the 90s who had some pretty loud opinions on immigration. The night before his speech, someone found a clip of him saying something about building a wall around the entire state and it went viral on our campus Snapchat stories. By noon the next day, a bunch of students had set up a protest outside the lecture hall with signs and chants. I was just there to help set up chairs, but I ended up having to talk to the dean when he showed up asking if we wanted security to intervene. We decided to let the event go ahead but moved it to a bigger room so both sides could have space. The guy gave his talk with like 20 protesters standing in the back silently holding signs, and honestly it was super tense but nobody got violent. The whole thing made me wonder if schools should just let any speaker come or if there's a line somewhere. How do you guys handle it when you're part of the group that actually booked the speaker and everything blows up?
My college had this big controversy last semester about a guy who wanted to talk about traditional marriage. The administration uninvited him because of protests, lol. I found out the student government controlled the funding through a clause about 'controversial speakers needing a 2/3 vote'. So I got 5 friends to join the senate, we blocked the funding, and the event got canceled without any free speech lawsuits. It took 2 weeks of reading the bylaws at 2am. Has anyone else used school policies to stop a speaker you disagreed with?
I went to that Ann Coulter event at UC Berkeley back in 2017 because my cousin goes there and I was visiting. There were like 200 cops there and protesters on both sides yelling at each other. The whole thing cost the university over $600,000 just for security. I get that people hate her views but banning her seemed to make way more people show up and get angry. Makes me wonder if letting controversial speakers come and face real pushback is better than trying to shut them down. What do you guys think, does banning a speaker just give them more attention?
I sat through a campus forum at Ohio State where a guy spent 20 minutes calling for violence against a specific religious group, and I realized my 'let everyone speak' stance was ignoring the line between speech and threats. The tipping point was watching three students walk out in tears while the speaker grinned at the crowd. Has anyone else had a moment where you changed your mind on where to draw that line?
Wasted my cash on a ticket to some auditorium in Portland where the protesters drowned him out before he even got to his main points, and now I'm wondering if anybody else has dropped money on these campus circus events and regretted it?
I had a sociology prof scheduled to speak at my school last fall about urban policy. Turns out someone dug up a piece he wrote in 2012 (when he was like 25) that had a slightly controversial take on gentrification. The student group cancelled him after 3 days of online drama, and I was the only one who actually tracked down the original article. It took me about 45 minutes of scrolling through old blog archives to find it, and honestly it was pretty mild. Has anyone else ever gone and read the actual source material behind a campus speaker getting banned, or am I just weirdly persistent?
I was grabbing coffee near the student union at my school last Tuesday and heard this history prof arguing with a poli sci professor. The history guy literally said 'cancel culture is just consequences for your actions getting louder.' I couldn't help but think about that speaker who got uninvited here two months ago over old tweets. It's not that simple though right? Like if a college bans someone for stuff they said 10 years ago, is that fair or is it just mob rule? Has anyone else seen a campus debate get shut down over something ancient?
Saw an old FOIA request on a public records site that showed the university paid that controversial pundit to back out quietly after the backlash got too loud, has anyone else spotted their school doing this with taxpayer money?
Last fall, my school pulled a journalist's invite over some old tweets, and the whole thing felt rushed. I was in the crowd when the dean said it was for safety, but no one actually explained what the tweets said. Has anyone else had their school cancel a speaker without giving a real reason?
Last semester I helped bring a former ACLU lawyer to our campus forum. One student cornered me after and said I was normalizing hate speech. She quoted a single line from his book out of context. Has anyone else been called out by someone who clearly didn't read the full material?