Claremont Colleges’ Newspaper: ‘Hate Speech Is Not Free Speech’

The Student Life, the Claremont Colleges’ sole weekly newspaper left-wing tabloid, published an article on February 24 titled “Milo’s Hate Speech is Not Free Speech.” Scripps College freshman Tiara Sharma discussed her contempt for those who disagreed with those who censored Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley and stated that individuals who possessed his ideals should never be welcomed at the Claremont Colleges.

In the aftermath of the Berkeley riots that forced him to cancel his speaking engagement, I had many conversations with people who claimed to condemn Yiannopoulos’s ideologies, but defended his right to disseminate them on college campuses. My response to these people is simple: college campuses are not, and should not be, responsible for financially supporting figures like Yiannopoulos whose politics are founded upon the marginalization of certain identities. Our campuses cannot host public figures who claim that “gay rights have made us dumber,” call transgender people “mentally ill,” or claim that rape culture is a “fantasy.”