PSA: I was booking speakers for campus events and didn't check their full records

I'm the student events coordinator at a small college in Oregon and I booked this activist speaker for a free speech event last semester, only to find out later they had a history of making threats at other schools. A professor tipped me off after they googled the person's name and found a news article from 2019 about a campus disruption they caused. How do other student leaders vet speakers without turning it into a political minefield?

2 comments

2 Comments

ryan_clark4014d ago

Did you at least have a backup speaker ready after that happened?

sean_park814d ago

My cousin runs a small bookstore in Portland and he had a similar problem when booking local authors for readings. He started checking their social media posts from just the past year, not just the official bio they send. One time he booked a poet who seemed harmless enough, but the guy showed up late and spent twenty minutes arguing with an audience member about parking spots. Now he runs every name through a simple Google News search going back five years, and he also asks three random people in his shop if they've heard of the person before booking. It's not a perfect system but it caught one speaker who had been banned from two other stores. Maybe you could try something like that with a few student volunteers before signing anyone.