Public safety officials at the University of Southern California have forced students to scrap a talk by free speech proponent Dave Rubin.
The host of The Rubin Report was due to speak to the USC chapter of Young Americans for Liberty tomorrow night.
But the group had to pull the event after last minute demands for the group to pay for two armed security guards to watch over the event.
According to The Tab USC, the additional surprise charges would have cost an extra $540.
The group didn’t want to pay – both because of the financial burden, and to avoid setting a precedent of armed professionals being needed at political events.
YAL president Chad Lonski said he offered to provide bag checkers instead – but was told it wasn’t enough.
As a result the event has been suspended, with no sense of when it might happen instead.
Messages from the Department of Public Safety to YAL officials claimed that the extra security was necessary because Rubin has taken “controversial stances which made national news”.
It is hard to conclude that the USC officials did not have the infamous Milo Yiannopoulos riots at Berkeley in mind when advising heightened security.
However, Though Rubin takes positions which annoy the same people who despite Yiannopoulos, his tone is very different.
Likewise, his campus appearances have rarely created any real-world discord.
Rubin interviewed Yiannopoulos in Los Angeles as part of the latter’s Dangerous Faggot tour last year – which sparked some protests, but seemed almost entirely connected to Yiannapoulos.
Campus events featuring just Rubin as recently as last month went off without a hitch.
Featured image via Getty Images and Flickr/Ting Chen
