On Thursday, Northwestern University notified Young America’s Foundation that a previously-scheduled event on May 24 with Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro, which was set to be open to the public, had now been closed to the public due to “safety concerns.” Instead, the event will only be open to students. According to one of the organizing students, security officials at the school were concerned that outsiders would disrupt the event. The College Republicans agreed to the administration’s stipulations in the interest of moving ahead with the event.
This announcement comes on the heels of Northwestern University students disrupting a sociology class because a public relations officer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was visiting. According to The Daily Wire:
The students were part of MEChA de Northwestern, Black Lives Matter NU, the Immigrant Justice Project, the Asian Pacific American Coalition, NU Queer Trans Intersex People of Color and Rainbow Alliance clubs at the prestigious research university in Chicago. The class was taught by Prof. Beth Redbird, who is in her second year of teaching at Northwestern. According to The Daily Northwestern, protesters yelled “f**k ICE” and demanded answers as to why Prof. Redbird invited the ICE officer to campus. The unnamed officer left the classroom after the disruption began and Redbird answered a series of the protesters’ questions. She said that she invited the officer to speak to explain to her class how the agency works and that she planned to invite an illegal immigrant to her Thursday class to balance out the conversation.
The president of Northwestern University, Morton Schapiro, has also stated that “safe spaces” are useful and should be protected by the administration. This week, he explained, “You want to protect the First Amendment, obviously, but it isn’t absolute. People reduce it to slogans or free speech at all costs.”