When conservatives show up to speak on too many college campuses these days, it’s anybody’s guess whether they’ll be cancelled, attacked or otherwise shut down or shut up. While the perpetrators run the gamut–snowflake students, professional protesters and Marxist-minded faculty–too often administrators cave in to the pressure and fail in their obligations to the speaker and the First Amendment.
But when a recent event on the red hot transgender issue stirred up a backlash on the University of Minnesota Duluth campus, the News Tribune says UMD officials did not back down, despite the controversy surrounding it.
Hosted by the college’s chapter of a conservative nonprofit group, Turning Point USA, student-turned-spokesperson Olivia Krolczyk took to the stage to advocate for free speech on campuses and the exclusion of transgender women from women’s sports.
“My story shows that the issue of men in women sports extends far beyond the locker room, pool, track field,” Krolczyk said to the crowd that gathered in UMD’s lecture hall. “It extends into classrooms just like this. It affects students, just like you guys.”
Krolczyk rose to internet notoriety after receiving a failing grade on an assignment due, she says, to a professor’s bias against conservative ideologies. Now, she’s become an ambassador for the Riley Gaines Foundation, started by former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines, who advocates for keeping transgender women out of women’s sports.
The occasion should also have been billed as a gen-ed course for students who evidently were not taught the bedrock American principles of open discussion and free exchange of ideas that’s supposed to be a hallmark of higher education. As word got around of Krolczyk’s impending appearance, there were several rocky moments on campus involving students who did not approve of her appearance.
In the week leading up to the event, tensions were high on campus, according to students both involved with and opposing the event. Several Turning Point USA chapter members reported that posters advertising the event around campus had been torn down or defaced, and hostility from other students.
[UMD chapter president Sam] Spanier, a UMD freshman, told the News Tribune that he had been threatened during an altercation with another student. The university confirmed that a student had been cited for fifth-degree misdemeanor assault and disorderly conduct, following a “thorough and immediate” investigation from campus police.
As a result, campus police were well represented at the Turning Point USA event, ready to do what needed to be done. At one point, a man near the stage abruptly shouted at Krolczyk to “go kill yourself” before storming out of the auditorium. “That’s OK,” she told the audience. “I’ve heard it before.”
Warnings were issued several times throughout the hourlong speech and question-and-answer session over disruptions from the audience. Multiple students were removed from the venue by campus police, who were on-scene ahead of the event.
“We had a few extra officers on tonight for the event,” said Sean Huls, UMD’s chief of police. “You never know how these events are going to go. We hope for the best, we prepare the best that we can. We don’t want to over-prepare or under-prepare. At the same time, we don’t want to have an overwhelming police presence, which I don’t think we did tonight. I think we had a good plan in place, and we followed that plan.”
No further action was taken against individuals escorted from the event, which drew an estimated 100 attendees, pro and con, plus more protesters outside the venue. It’s the year-old conservative group’s largest gathering to date. UMD officials were quick to distance the institution from Krolczyk’s views, while also defending her right to voice them, even on a college campus.
“We’re trying to make sure that people are able to express their personal viewpoints, and I should emphasize that they’re not speaking on behalf of the university and that they don’t represent the university’s viewpoints,” said [UMD public relations representative Lynne] Williams. “But our concern is to make sure that there is respectful dialogue and that we are providing space for multiple viewpoints to be shared and presented.”