20
That time the college uninvited a speaker after 3 days of protests
Last fall, my school pulled a journalist's invite over some old tweets, and the whole thing felt rushed. I was in the crowd when the dean said it was for safety, but no one actually explained what the tweets said. Has anyone else had their school cancel a speaker without giving a real reason?
2 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In2 Comments
nina_clark21d ago
honestly i gotta push back on this one. the school probably did explain what the tweets were but you just missed it or didn't dig deep enough, you know? most schools have a whole process for these things and they don't just randomly cancel someone for no reason. if there were protests for three days straight that's a pretty clear sign the speaker had some seriously problematic stuff out there. the dean saying it was for safety is also totally valid, like imagine if a speaker had said something racist or violent and then showed up on campus, that would be a disaster. sometimes people just want to play the victim card for getting called out on their bad takes.
6
fiona_sullivan2921d ago
Three days of protests is actually a huge red flag that people outside the campus bubble don't always see. @nina_clark, I've dealt with a similar situation at a conference I helped organize last year, and the rule of thumb was always if the backlash hits a critical mass like that, you have to look at the actual content of the tweets not just the outrage. I'd recommend pulling the original tweets or screenshots and going through them line by line to see if there's a pattern of harmful stuff buried in there. The dean saying safety is the reason is legit too because once the protest energy gets that high, you're looking at real security issues even if the speaker isn't a direct threat. People definitely play the victim card sometimes, but it's also true that a lot of cancellations happen based on vibes and rumors instead of actual receipts. If you want to be sure, check if the school put out a formal statement with specific examples, if they didn't then you're probably right to be skeptical.
2