It’s no surprise college campuses these days are exceedingly liberal; whether it be the militant LGBTQ+ (did I get them all?) movement, the total assault on free speech, or the sad development of the PC, safe space, trigger warning culture smothering our campuses, campus leftism just keeps spreading.
Still, while the DePaul student body, full of our lovely leftists, is oftentimes too far off the deep end to handle any real opposing viewpoints, one would still expect administration to maintain at least some degree of fairness.
Regrettably, that has not been the case. My club, the DePaul College Republicans, hosted Milo Yiannopoulos as part of his “Dangerous Faggot Tour” (the administration wouldn’t let us call the tour by its name, though) yesterday at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. Close to 600 people came from all over the Midwest, some even driving as many as 8 hours — all coming to see Milo.
This was an event by and for conservatives and Milo fans. We raised thousands of dollars independently, from small donors, to cover security costs. Not a single dime came from DePaul. Even after dropping an extra thousand dollar security charge on us with just a few days’ notice, we still found a way to acquire the necessary funding.
Throughout our planning over the last month, DePaul consistently looked for ways to undermine and trip up our event. We beat them every time. We had thought, obviously wishful thinking now, that sort of slight handedness from the University would end once we got to the event. We thought wrong.
Once the event got started, Milo did his thing; he was smart, sassy, and everyone was having a good time discussing radical feminism. Everything was going smoothly. But after about 15 minutes, a throng of Black Lives Matter thugs stormed the stage, blasting whistles and insulting Milo, our guest, as well as everyone else at the event. Their goal was to shut us down.
From shamelessly threatening Milo, ripping the microphone from my hands, pacing up and down the stage, and screaming at myself, Milo and the audience, there was nothing these students wouldn’t do to undermine the event we worked so hard to organize.
We had a feeling something like this would be coming, but no one expected it to reach the scale it did. Still, the belligerent liberalism of today breeds and encourages this type of behavior. If anyone dares to wander off the reservation, they will do anything and everything they can to suppress speech, destroy conservatives, and intimidate into submission anyone who dares stand up to their mob rule.
They are the modern day brown shirts.
But why wouldn’t they act like this? When schools refuse to implement the security measures student organizers paid to put in place, the thuggery runs unabated and campus leftists are given free rein to trample on any event they deem unacceptable.
In this case, DePaul acted even more egregiously.
As I’ve previously documented for Breitbart, our efforts to secure security for the event were fraught with difficulties — mostly created by the college administration. In the end, after being forced to pay an extra thousand dollars for them, we had 15 officers from DePaul public safety at the event to ensure things would go smoothly. We even outlined a tiered system to respond quickly and efficiently to any issues.
And yet, when push came to shove, this “security” we paid for were nearly useless. They made a couple half-hearted attempts to get the activists off the stage, which came to nothing. After all, these are Marxists we’re talking about; a simple “get off the stage” will not suffice.
After a while, when the 15 DePaul security officers there refused to do anything, the Chicago Police Department showed up. They, we so naively thought, would take care of this mess, but nothing happened. The thugs around the stage were allowed to continue harassing our attendees and harasssing our guest, and eventually end the event itself. Neither the police nor DePaul’s security did anything to apprehend them.
In a nadir of absurdity, the one person who was arrested by the police was an independent journalist filming the protestors outside. No one from the fascist mob was arrested, no one who threatened violence was arrested, no one who destroyed our event was arrested –but a journalist was. If there was a low point for the actions of the authorities, this was it.
To be frank, security is supposed to be there to keep everyone safe. Instead of targeting independent journalists, it might be smarter to target the people actually causing safety issues in the first place. Allowing obviously malicious hijackers, with prejudices against our guest and many attendees, to get on the stage and do what they did is the complete antithesis of a secure environment.
In reality, DePaul did this for two reasons; either they wanted this event to be stopped or they were so spineless they refused to take care of an issue we expected.
Given the utter inaction, we the DePaul College Republicans are calling on the University to either refund our donors who helped get this event on its feet or help fund a return visit for Milo. We, as well as the hundreds of people who came out were robbed of our opportunity to see Milo by DePaul administration and security, who refused to stand up to these malcontents.
After all the hard work we put in, after all the hoops DePaul made us jump through, they wouldn’t even get officers at the event to do their jobs — free speech be damned. This disgraceful treatment of Milo, our event and our club must be answered for.
Give us our money back, DePaul!
John Minster is a freshmen at DePaul University and the Vice President of the DePaul College Republicans. You may contact him at johnminster15@gmail.com
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