DePaul University has denied a commentator and conservative writer, Ben Shapiro, from speaking at an event on its campus.
"So I've been banned from DePaul. Because they are cowards," Shapiro tweeted Monday.
The move comes after an event held last May by Milo Yiannopoulos, an editor of the conservative commentary website Breitbart, was interrupted by protesters. Videos uploaded to YouTube show tense exchanges between the audience who showed up to hear Yiannopoulos speak and those who came to disrupt it.
“I can confirm that we denied a request to bring Ben Shapiro to campus at this time as a speaker,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported DePaul spokeswoman Carol Hughes saying in an email. “DePaul University’s Office of Public Safety determined, after observing events which took place when Mr. Shapiro spoke elsewhere, that it was not in a position to provide the type of security that would be required at this time.”
Shapiro used to work at Breitbart along with Yiannopolous before becoming the editor-in-chief of the Daily Wire, also a conservative commentary website.
Yiannopolous, who has been permanently banned from Twitter, is known for his anti-feminist, provocative persona and incendiary platform, often claiming that being gay is a choice, there is no such thing as an income gap between men and women, and that Muslims are inherently violent.
“Our position is that in this particular case, Ben Shapiro doesn’t cross the line on free speech,” Jack McNeil, president of the DePaul Democrats, told the Sun-Times. “If DePaul has drawn a line on speakers, we need to know what that line is and why it’s there.”
Local
Shapiro appeared on Fox News’ “The Kelly File” Tuesday where he said DePaul “can’t keep their own students from assaulting people, so therefore they can’t bring in speakers who disagree with the students.”
