Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro will attend tonight’s event at DePaul University, featuring “based mom” Christina Hoff Summers, but he will stay in the audience and off the speakers platform.
DePaul’s branch of the Young America’s Foundation invited Shapiro to speak on campus at the Hoff Summers’s event, in defiance of a ban from school officials put in place last August. YAF announced the change over the weekend. But when DePaul administrators got wind of the plan, they took swift and decisive action, threatening to suspend or even ban the club for failing to follow their orders.
DePaul is just scared that they won't have enough room for safe spaces once @benshapiro is done speaking. pic.twitter.com/xrzwe3TKFx
— Patrick Wool (@Patrick_Wool95) November 15, 2016
DePaul also, according to Shapiro, appeared to expand their ban, prohibiting him not just from speaking, from from even stepping foot on DePaul’s campus—quite a feat, considering that DePaul’s buildings are scattered throughout Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.
DePaul administration is apparently attempting to ban me from even setting foot on campus. We're still coming. #FreeDePaul
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 15, 2016
Shapiro, who was already in Chicago for the event when the administration’s hammer came down, says he’ll be in the audience for Hoff Summers’s speech.
I very much look forward to attending. 🙂 https://t.co/FsDR3euwbf
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 15, 2016
Hoff Summers seemed to indicate, however, that there might still be plans to incorporate Shapiro into Tuesday’s program.
Off to Chicago to give talk on campus intolerance at DePaul. Seems my co-speaker @benshapiro has been banned again. Stay tuned. #FreeDePaul
— Christina H. Sommers (@CHSommers) November 15, 2016
Shapiro added, “See you there, snowflakes.”
DePaul’s administration banned Milo Yiannopoulos after his speech descended into chaos last spring. DePaul students, angry with Milo’s message, stormed the stage, took the microphone from a speaker and mobbed Milo and his entourage outside DePaul’s auditorium.
DePaul pre-emptively banned Shapiro after students at a California university accosted Shapiro outside of a speech there. Citing “security concerns”—and, apparently, concerns that DePaul students were not mature enough to handle Shapiro’s message—DePaul told YAF that the administration, and not individual groups, would host “challenging” speakers.
Last week, YAF announced that it would not abide by DePaul’s ban and host Shapiro anyway, but DePaul appears to have out-muscled the conservative campus group.
Heat Street has reached out to DePaul University for comment, but has yet to hear back. Hoff Summers is still scheduled to speak Tuesday evening, at 5 p.m. in DePaul’s commons.
