As you might expect after the attempt at Marquette University to sabotage Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro’s speech, plans to protest Shapiro’s upcoming YAF lecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara on February 21 have been in the works for months.
As YAF’s Amy Lutz reports, in November leftists were trying to figure out how to cause trouble. She adds:
During an ironically titled “Free Speech Dialogue,” faculty and staff discussed with students ways to “protest” the upcoming lecture . . . The Dean of Student Life, Katya Armistead, stated that she was “upset,” and that it “killed her” that she was “the one who ultimately has to make this event successful.” Other professors suggested creating a list of “sanctuary” faculty members who students could speak to if they were “distressed” over the Shapiro lecture.”
Other suggestions from staff members, according to Lutz: occupy the audience and argue (interrupt) with Ben Shapiro during his speech. Lutz notes ironically, “Audience members decided to create ‘UCSB Against Hate’ buttons to wear to the event, calling them emblems of ‘inclusivity.’”
In case none of that dissuades a prospective audience from attending Shapiro’s speech, the Cultural Resource Centers of UCSB will be hosting a “Block Party” at the very time of Shapiro’s speech to celebrate “solidarity and cultural appreciation.”
The intellectual feast at the “Block Party” will reportedly include candlemaking, bracelet making, and a poetry slam.
As The Daily Wire reported of UCSB last November:
In a meeting with the school’s Associated Students Senate, members of the Black Students Union (BSU) at UCSB framed Shapiro as racist, close-minded, and “inciteful,” and suggesting that he should not be allowed to speak on the topic of Black Lives Matter because he is a “white man.” “As a white man, you don’t have to worry about safe space. You don’t have to worry about it affecting your physical being,” one student said, while another blamed “whiteness” for inciting violence on campus.
The comments became so heated that at one point, student senators had to stop a BSU protester for attempting to pick out all the student senators who voted to allow Shapiro on campus and calling them “snakes who like to hide under the banner of free speech.”
The UCSB College Republicans requested $5,000 in funding from the Associated Students for the event. After their funding was approved, the BSU organized “Senate BLACKout” protests.
“She was ‘upset,’ and that it ‘killed her that she was ‘the one who ultimately has to make this event successful.’”
UCSB Dean of Student Life Katya Armistead, allegedly
Earlier this month, signs on campus advertising Shapiro’s speech were vandalized.