Invited a controversial speaker to my campus group and got a surprising result

I run a small debate club at my college and last semester I pushed to invite a speaker who had been banned from another school nearby. The administration gave us a ton of pushback and said it would cause chaos. We went ahead with it anyway but set clear ground rules for the Q&A and had a neutral moderator. The event actually went smooth, only like 10 people walked out, and the discussion afterwards was really productive. Has anyone else had luck getting a banned speaker to come talk without things blowing up?

2 comments

2 Comments

henry_palmer2413d agoMost Upvoted

Was it actually that big of a deal or just drama?

patriciam2213d ago

Not exactly drama but definitely a lot of hand wringing beforehand. The whole thing just showed that people can handle a tough topic if you set it up right.