YAF Sues UCLA After It Allowed Pro-Hamas Protesters to Shut Down My Speech

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The freedom of speech is the foundation of any free society. Without it, a tyrant can work his will unhindered, which is one reason why the Biden-Harris regime’s distaste for this Constitutionally protected right is so disquieting. The problem, however, didn’t start with Old Joe and Kamala. America’s universities for decades have been radioactive wastelands of far-left indoctrination, at which opposing views are demonized, stigmatized, and silenced altogether. But one courageous and indispensable group is fighting back.

Young America’s Foundation filed suit on Thursday against UCLA for blocking a lecture I was scheduled to give there on May 15, 2024, entitled “Everything You Know About Palestine Is Wrong.” I made it to campus, under police guard so heavy that it would have been appropriate for a president of the United States or visiting head of state, which only underscored the fact that UCLA officials knew very well that the pro-Hamas protesters they were indulging would turn violent without any hesitation.

Nevertheless, indulge them they did. I was allowed to go to the hall where the event was supposed to have taken place, where I met briefly with the patriotic students of the UCLA YAF chapter, who had invited me to come to the campus in the first place. No one else, however, was allowed in. I had been looking forward to what had been certain to be a hostile but, I hoped, illuminating give-and-take with some of the campus pro-Hamas cohort. Instead, I watched from the window as they marched by, holding their propaganda signs and shouting their moronic slogans, until the UCLA students told me to keep away from the window, lest these indoctrinated thugs turn to the violence that the campus police feared so very much.

UCLA top dogs cited those very “security concerns” in shutting down the event. Given the clear bloodlust of the pro-Hamas crowd, that may seem reasonable at first. However, YAF’s Spencer Brown, who before moving over to YAF was Townhall’s managing editor, explained the ominous implications of this: “These UCLA administrators violated the YAF students’ rights and failed to prevent a heckler’s veto by caving to pro-Hamas agitators. As a public school run with taxpayer dollars, UCLA must remain viewpoint-neutral and is prohibited from picking winners and losers when it comes to free expression.”

Indeed. Colleges and universities all over the country have not been viewpoint-neutral for a very long time, but that doesn’t mean that patriots simply have to accept the status quo. These institutions play a pivotal role in training the next generation, which is why Marxist entities, as well as well-heeled pro-Sharia states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have targeted them for so very long. The pro-Hamas cadres taking to encampments to demonstrate their support for jihad terror didn’t spring up out of nowhere. The groundwork for this has been prepared for a very long time.

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