University Of Minnesota Hides Ben Shapiro

                The tolerant, inclusive leftists and progressives on college campuses are quick to threaten people and wreck things if they are in danger of being exposed to non-Marxist thought and ideas. That has been perfectly clear for several years now. This fact cannot be recognized, however, or the tolerant, inclusive leftists and progressives on college campuses would be quick to threaten people and wreck things.

                Talk about your Gordian Knot.

                This has been demonstrated yet again on the campus of the University of Minnesota. The school preemptively caved to expected leftist mayhem by exiling Ben Shapiro, who was invited to speak at the “U” by the Young America’s Foundation, to a small, remote venue far from the main campus hub. Shunting Shapiro, a conservative, off to a satellite campus shows that the public, taxpayer-funded university has no regard for fairness, free speech or ideological diversity. The school had no reservations whatsoever about letting now disgraced Senator Al Franken or the even more radically left-wing Senator Elizabeth Warren (a.k.a. “Pocahontas”) speak in the deluxe 1,500-seat Ted Mann Concert Hall- centrally located on the main Minneapolis campus- recently. A venue that had no conflicting events when the YAF requested it, according to the group.

                Several other options were explored, Mayo Auditorium and Willey Hall among them, in addition to the Ted Mann Concert Hall. The school eschewed all of them for various reasons. It is clear the school doesn’t want any non-leftist events to take place near light rail lines, University Avenue, the hospitals that border the campus, or any other high traffic areas. In fact, University of Minnesota Police Lieutenant Troy Buhta nixed the 800-seat Willey Hall “due to access from the skyway.”

The reality is clear: progressives are a danger to those with whom they disagree. Conservatives are not. Conservatives neither threaten people and/or wreck things, nor even try to prevent others from speaking. (Something about the Constitution and our founding ideals). So, it is the conservatives who must be prevented from speaking. To keep the peace and in the interests of public safety. Duh! (And leftists think that’s fair). If the sheeple continue to allow this, there’s only one way it can end. Hello, East Germany 2.0! I’ve heard good things!

Lt. Buhta did sign off on the far-flung Continuing Education and Conference Center on the St. Paul campus (often referred to as “Moo U” due to the prevalence of agricultural instruction there), though the CECC is several miles and a bit of a drive from the center of the main campus. Actually, he signed off on this venue because its so inconvenient to get to, saying, “The best part is the building is all by itself and much easier to secure inside with ample room outside. There isn’t (sic) any significant transportation routes nearby.”

Event hosts say this 400-seat facility won’t come close to meeting the demand for attending Shapiro’s speech, which, of course, was one of the goals of the leftist thugs. They say they had 725 requests for tickets in the first 24-hours after they went on sale and claim they could easily sell “thousands” of tickets. They released a statement, directed at the university, reading, “We attempted to reserve every large capacity building on this campus. We know why we were unable to rent a large venue: The campus leftists and proto-terrorists who call themselves Anti-Fascists cannot hear a different opinion without promising a violent, disruptive protest.”

As The Fix points out, public universities are not allowed to treat different viewpoints differently based solely on the response they provoke. The Young America’s Foundation’s Spencer Brown points out there are unconstitutional restrictions on time, place and manner to be dealt with here, as well. Yet, the progressive scum have achieved a “heckler’s veto.” The school has aided and abetted this by refusing to press charges or expel students known to have engaged in violence and vandalism at previous speaker events, thereby encouraging such behavior.

The university “patently denies any claim of bias based on ideological reasons, stating: “We strive to meet the unique needs for each and every event, and the event scheduled for later this month is no different. When working to accommodate a venue request, our top priority is and will always be the safety and security of our University community, and with that in mind the University works with organizers to determine a location that meets everyone’s needs to the best of our ability.”

The school also flatly contradicted the student organizer’s account, claiming that the organizers were searching for a smaller venue than the one they later said Shapiro could easily fill.

Now, maybe it will tell us the one about the three bears.

The school is simply unwilling to spend the money sadly needed to protect the inalienable rights of those with whom it disagrees.