The 300 person protest that made me switch sides on campus speaker bans

I used to be all for kicking controversial speakers off campus, thinking it protected students. Then I covered a Milo Yiannopoulos event at Ohio State last fall as part of my delivery route, and 300 people showed up to counter-protest peacefully. Watching them drown out his message with chants and signs instead of violence just clicked for me. Why do we assume banning someone is stronger than letting the crowd respond with their own speech?

3 comments

3 Comments

fiona_kim11d ago

Wait, don't we have a responsibility to protect students from hate speech that can actually hurt people, not just drown it out? Seems like a protest doesn't stop the damage from happening in the first place.

evan_cooper7311d ago

Yeah I remember back in high school this kid got suspended for wearing a shirt that said "America First" and half the cafeteria started yelling at him during lunch. The yelling didn't change his mind at all, it just made everyone pick sides.

aaron_perry11d ago

Protest IS the point though @evan_cooper73, screaming at someone isn't the same as actually protecting anyone.