The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh has been blocked twice now by campus officials from speaking to students at St. Louis University (SLU) in Missouri over what appears to be a response to his conservative views.
The school at first claimed that seemingly arbitrary COVID-19 precautions would have to be followed, or the event would be canceled. However, after finding a new venue at a church “intimately close” with SLU, Walsh was again notified on Tuesday that his talk would have to be canceled after the new venue claimed that certain views held by Walsh are supposedly inconsistent with Roman Catholic teaching. Walsh is a practicing Roman Catholic.
In late September, Walsh was invited to speak on December 1 by the school’s Young America’s Foundation and College Republicans Club. At first, Walsh was originally going to conduct his talk in the Wool Ballroom of the Busch Student Center. His talk was titled, “Why the Pro-Life Movement Is Center Stage In The Culture War.”
In early November, YAF students released a video titled “What Is a Woman?” poking fun at a left-wing group that complained a pro-abortion event held by a group called the SLU Sluts was too “feminine.” The students said that anybody could be pregnant, not just women, and that the SLU Sluts abortion event was transphobic because it featured only women who wanted abortions.
YAF labeled their video “What is a Woman?” because Walsh typically asks this question to those who believe that a man can become a woman through medical procedures and style of dress. As of this writing, no one who supports transgenderism has been able to answer Walsh’s question without offering a series of stereotypes, contradictions, and basic disregard for scientific facts.
YAF’s video, in turn, united progressive students on campus in protest of YAF and College Republicans as well as Walsh’s upcoming talk.
In a series of op-eds and petitions, students demanded that Walsh be disinvited from campus. YAF and College Republicans held firm with a series of their own op-eds stating why he deserved the right to speak.
To their credit, the school did not agree to leftist demands to have Walsh canceled.
But, in response to the outcry over the debate about womanhood, Walsh decided he wanted to speak about trans issues instead of the pro-life movement.
Once the school found out the new topic, they said that since he was originally approved to speak about pro-life issues that he must keep that as the main focus of his address. After back and forth, the conservative groups agreed to the school’s demand.
Then, in mid-November, school administrators informed the clubs that 90% of audience members had to be vaccinated, and social distancing with masks would have to be in place for the speech to occur in the original location.
YAF club president Nicholas Baker claims this was seemingly out of the blue and was not in line with previous COVID-19 policies on campus.
Baker notes that it is hard to say if this is in line with other campus COVID policies. He says the only other speaker to use Wool Ballroom this semester has been Steve from Nickelodeon’s “Blues Clues.”
The beloved children’s entertainer spoke to more than 800 audience members and did not require social distancing.
On Tuesday this week, Walsh joined the ranks of Steve from “Blues Clues” in American childhood lore, when he released his first-ever children’s book, “Johnny the Walrus.” It is an allegory for the insanity of the transgender movement. The Daily Wire reported earlier that the book quickly became a bestseller and sold out on Amazon within hours of publication.
Nonetheless, Baker questioned why Steve from “Blues Clues” was not restricted by COVID-19 measures, yet Walsh was going to be subjected to such measures. He also asked why basketball games with thousands of students and non-students alike are welcomed on campus.
However, school administrators insisted to conservative students and Matt Walsh that his talk would have to be elsewhere due to concerns with COVID-19 and vaccination status.
Walsh refused to comply, and the talk was moved to a new location.
The clubs had to scramble to find the replacement venue. The students were able to secure St. Francis Xavier College Church, a church closely affiliated with the school. This solved the problem of the majority of the audience needing to be vaccinated and the talk was scheduled to continue.
However, in emails obtained on Tuesday by The Daily Wire, the priest who approved Walsh’s event notified YAF and College Republicans and said that after reviewing videos and commentary by Walsh, he decided that Walsh’s “content regarding immigration, communities of color, Muslims and other important topics is not in keeping with who we are as a parish and as part of the Catholic Church.”
As a result, the priest informed the conservative students Walsh’s talk would have to be canceled less than 36 hours before the event.
In response to being twice canceled by SLU school administrators and affiliated officials, Walsh tweeted “It’s outrageous that SLU would go to such lengths to keep a bestselling children’s author off of their campus.”
It’s outrageous that SLU would go to such lengths to keep a bestselling children’s author off of their campus
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) November 30, 2021
Baker now says his club is currently looking at other venues to host the critically acclaimed children’s author.