On Oct. 2, at 3:30 p.m., UWO held an event titled “What About Free Speech?” This event was advertised as a bipartisan, open discussion of the state of free speech on college campuses. This was a clear farce the moment the event was underway.
First and foremost, everyone entering the event was made to fill out a sign-in form. The sign-in form required everyone present to provide their school email and personal phone number. The information from this form was then given to Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a far-right media organization, so that they could send recruitment texts to students present. A right wing organization like that having the personal information of students, without their knowledge or informed consent, is dangerous and unbelievably irresponsible from the organizers of this event.
Secondly, the panel assembled also made it clear that this was a far-right propaganda event at its core. The panel consisted of a representative from the College Republicans, a representative from Turning Point USA, and a representative from the College Democrats. This is an obviously slanted panel, but it’s even worse when you take into account that the “democratic” representative barely said a word at the panel. Three sentences he spoke the entire event, and it was only ever to agree and capitulate to the far-right members of the panel. How do we move forward when events like this are made to trick students into effectively listening to far-right proselytizing for an hour and a half, and then funnel students into far-right organizations?
The audience of the event was also profoundly right wing. Several members of the audience were permitted to spread blatant disinformation about DEI programs, lying through their teeth about what these programs are and do. One audience member made the claim that the rise in air traffic accidents is due to DEI. When the fact was raised that these accidents have happened due to the Trump administration cutting air travel regulations, the student handwaved and said “I’m not here to argue.” This audience member also made negative statements about “Jewish business ownership,” with no pushback from anyone at the event.
Audience members also brought up the attempted assassinations of Donald Trump as examples of “left wing political violence.” They said nothing when the fact was stated that the men who took shots at Trump were both right wing. They said nothing to the fact that political violence is an overwhelmingly right wing problem; all data on this issue points to this fact. The conservatives on the panel and audience simply moved on to the next talking point. The TPUSA representative claimed there was no political pressure to pull Jimmy Kimmel off the air, then later admitted that there was. All conservatives present, when shown slides of the blatant violence and censorship of the Trump administration, all had the same canned response: “I don’t like that member of the cabinet. I voted for Trump’s policy, not the man.” The obvious problem with this argument is that Trump’s cabinet is his policy. Yet, the ease at which they wash their hands of the elements of their movement that make them look vile was astounding.
The TPUSA representative was directly confronted by the professor organizing this event about a particularly ghoulish “progressive teacher watchlist” that the organization has on their website. When this evidence of free speech and open debate being nothing but a performance for TPUSA was presented, the TPUSA representative became agitated. He raised his voice, stuttered, and fumbled, incapable of defending the things his organization does when directly confronted with it. Members of the audience had to jump to his aid to whitewash and make excuses for the evident evil of making a list of teachers who fail your ideological purity test.
How do we move forward from this? How do we as a species grow from this moment, when we are forced to entertain the delusion that republicans are rational, despite all evidence to the contrary shown at this and countless other events? Free speech cannot survive if people in power view it only as a weapon. Surely it has been made clear here that all free speech to the political right is a bludgeon, a pretense to spread their ideology. It’s clear to anyone present at this event that the right’s appeals to civility and open debate is a pantomime.
