On Tuesday night, after 30 security officers threatened Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro not to set foot on the DePaul University campus or risk being arrested, even if Shapiro were just a prospective audience member to hear Christina Hoff Sommers speak, Shapiro alerted Sommers and her audience, prompting all of them to leave the university campus and walk to a nearby theater, where Shapiro delivered the speech DePaul had banned him from giving on campus.
Later Tuesday night, Shapiro appeared on The Kelly File with Megyn Kelly to discuss the incident. Kelly explained the incident, using the video of Shapiro confronting the security officers, then segued to her interview with Shapiro. Their exchange follows:
Kelly: Joining me now in a Kelly File exclusive, Ben Shapiro, editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire. Here we go again, Ben. Here we go again. It’s incredible how, I mean, time after time these college campuses won’t even let you speak because you get shouted down by intolerant people when you try to go and then they say it’s a security concern.
Shapiro: Yeah, it really is amazing; this one was actually particularly amazing because there wasn’t a protester anywhere in sight. So you had thirty security people and a sheriff from Cook County —
Kelly: But they could picture one in their heads!
Shapiro: Right. Exactly. So they’d actually internalized the rioters so well that now they could actually reflect them back out into the world. They’re tolerant of anything except somebody actually giving a speech on the topic of free speech. That is the actual topic of the speech of the speech that I was intending to give.
Kelly, incredulous: Say that again. Say that again.
Shapiro: The speech that I was giving was about free speech and they are tolerant enough to ban it. So that was exciting.
Kelly: It’s unbelievable. You were not allowed to speak about free speech at all. This is what modern-day university campuses have come to. Not in all cases; there’s the University of Chicago that denied people their safe spaces, but in this case. So you showed up there to make a point about free speech, and you were arrested. Now does this have any public dollars coming its way, this university?
Shapiro: It’s a private university, which is why I didn’t actually just attempt to walk right past security; if it was a public university, then I would have done so under my first amendment rights. It’s a private university, so once they made clear that I would be arrested if I took two steps forward, then what I did instead is, Christina Hoff Sommers, who joined me at this lecture, she actually Skyped me into the lecture hall, and then we told everybody in the lecture hall to get up and walk out, and we all walked over to a theater that was about three blocks away and then did the event anyway.
Kelly: What do the kids who, if there are kids who are protesting, young adults, your presence, say? Do you know?
Shapiro: I think they’re just offended by anybody who has a differing point of view. I’m speaking tomorrow at University of Wisconsin at Madison, and one of the key reasons that they’re protesting me, apparently big protests are planned, is because I’m pro-Trump, which is weird, since I wasn’t.
Kelly: You’ve been pretty critical of him.
Shapiro: They’re just making things up. Yeah, exactly.
Kelly: Yeah. Right. Exactly. They will let controversial figures from the left come and speak; it’s just not somebody who’s got strong views from the right. We’ve seen it so many times. Ben, good for you for trying. Thanks for being here.
Shapiro: Thanks a lot.
Video below: