My own college tried uninviting a speaker because of a petition with 200 signatures

Back in 2019 at Michigan State, a conservative commentator was set to speak on campus. Then a student group got a petition with like 200 names and the administration suddenly said they were 'reviewing security concerns.' It took 2 full weeks of arguing before they let the event happen anyway. Has anyone else seen a small number of students shut down a speaker that quick?

2 comments

2 Comments

blake_smith26d ago

Man that sounds exactly like what happened at my school a couple years back. A small group with a petition got the administration to pull the plug on a speaker before anyone even heard them speak. It's frustrating because 200 signatures out of thousands of students is nothing, but they acted like it was a huge mandate. The whole "security concerns" excuse feels like a cop out too, like they just wanted to avoid any backlash from the loudest voices. Glad your event eventually happened, but it sucks that it took 2 weeks of fighting for something that should have been straightforward. The whole situation makes you wonder how many other speakers get silently canceled before anyone even knows about it.

kevin_schmidt9726d ago

A buddy of mine went to a small liberal arts school back east. He told me they had a journalist coming to talk about free speech on campus. Some student group got a petition with maybe 150 signatures and the dean emails the whole school saying the event is postponed due to "logistical issues." Turned out the dean just didn't want the hassle of dealing with the complaints. My friend said it took a student newspaper article blasting the decision before the school finally rescheduled it like a month later. It's wild how fast a couple hundred voices can scramble a whole administration when they're scared of a little pushback.