Top 10: Ben Shapiro Campus Lectures

Young America’s Foundation has already worked with students to bring Ben Shapiro’s conservative message to more than 35 schools across the country. As a result of the wild success that’s resulted from these events, Shapiro and YAF recently announced a partnership to work together exclusively during the 2018-2019 academic year. “I am thrilled to partner with Young America’s Foundation to visit more campuses and pierce the liberal group-think bubble,” noted Ben Shapiro on the announcement of his exclusive YAF campus lecture tour. “I welcome students who disagree with me to attend each event and ask challenging questions.” As we look forward to Ben’s upcoming events and what is sure to be a campus-changing 2018-2019 lecture tour, here are our ‘Top 10″ #YAFonCampus Shapiro lectures from the past few years.

10. Marquette University

“We should all spend less time worrying about what victims we are and more time on how we are going to succeed.” Young America’s Foundation discovered that Marquette University staff members were plotting to register for seats at Shapiro’s upcoming lecture to, in their words, “take a seat away from a student that would be interested in going.” Despite a lack of action on the part of Marquette’s administration when this situation was brought to light, more than 500 students heard Ben Shapiro speak. Young America’s Foundation had to open the lecture hall doors 20 minutes early because the lobby was overflowing with students hoping to get good seats. More than 300 students packed the lecture hall and an additional 200 filled an overflow room next door.

9. Penn State

“When you tell people that they are victims of rhetoric, and therefore, they get to react with violence, you’re leading to a more violent culture. It creates adults unwilling to face up to reality.” Ben Shapiro spoke to a capacity auditorium of 350 students at Penn State University with an additional 300 to 400 students lined up outside, hoping to get in. Black Lives Matter agitators stood outside the lecture hall for the entirety of the talk, pounding on the doors and chanting leftist clichés. Despite these disruptions, Shapiro gave a thoughtful speech that received multiple standing ovations. Following the event, a number of leftist and moderate students told a YAF staffer that Ben had given them a lot to think about.

8. Westmont College

“For the Left, there’s only one rule, and this is equality of outcome. Not equality of opportunity, equality of outcome. All that matters is that we all end up in the same place.” The Westmont College administration did all they could to inhibit Ben Shapiro’s appearance at their school, taking measures that included banning photography and filming of the event based on a school rule that prohibits people from taping others without their permission. Shapiro began his remarks by giving himself permission to film himself and proceeded to use a YAF staff member’s cell phone and a selfie stick to personally record his lecture. YAF students were not deterred by the myriad hurdles put up by the administration and turned out a standing-room-only crowd of 200 people!

7. University of Missouri

“White privilege is a way to silence anybody who is not of color. It is just a leftist term that means ‘shut up because you are not a member of a privileged minority group.'” YAF immediately began working with our students at the University of Missouri when their school erupted with Leftist protests over “white privilege.” Within days, we brought a dose of reality to the University in the form of Ben Shapiro. Students came out in droves to hear Shapiro defend free speech, requiring an overflow room to accommodate all the attendees. Protesters attempted to disrupt the event by pulling a fire alarm, but the event organizers shut it off immediately. The speech, during which Shapiro told students to, “toughen up, spoiled children,” went off without a hitch.

6. Otay Ranch High School

“A lot of folks tend to think that you luck into poverty or you luck into wealth. That may be true in rare circumstances, but as a general matter, it is absolutely untrue, especially in America.” The Otay Ranch High School Young Americans for Freedom chapter invited Ben Shapiro to address an assembly of 450 students at their school. The speech was going well when, in answer to a question from a student, Ben stated, “The reason people are permanently poor in America is not because they don’t have money it’s because they suck with money.” A school administrator took the microphone to declare that Ben had “crossed the line,” and instruct students that they were free to leave. When both Ben and students asked what line had been crossed, the administrator refused to answer. He later told Shapiro that many of the students came from low-income homes, and he, therefore, needed to give them the option to leave to protect their feelings. More than half the students chose to stay and listen to Ben finish his question and answer session.

5. DePaul University

“Social justice, white privilege, safe spaces–these concepts are designed to destroy American ideology.” YAF students at DePaul University invited Ben Shapiro to join “The Factual Feminist,” Christina Hoff Sommers, in a joint campus lecture. University administrators got wind of Ben’s involvement and promptly banned him from speaking or even setting foot on campus. You can see what happened when YAF and Ben showed up anyway here. Even 30 armed police officers and the threat of arrest were not enough to deter YAF and Shapiro. Ben Facetimed into Hoff Sommers’ ongoing lecture and the two directed the entire audience of students to an off-campus venue where they continued the event together, addressing a full hall and two overflow rooms full of attendees.

4. University of Utah

“To me the most empowering thing that anyone can say to you is that your life is your own and it’s your decision what to do with it… you get to make the decisions that make your life better.” https://www.facebook.com/youngamericasfoundation/videos/10155212012452408/ “Despite controversy, the YAF shows no signs of being deterred,” stated KUTV in their coverage of Ben Shapiro’s appearance at the University of Utah. That pretty much sums it up. Several members of Antifa were arrested shortly before the event when conservative podcast host and YAF speaker Steven Crowder uncovered the hate group’s plans to use violence against conservative attendees. Nearly 300 protesters gathered outside the auditorium where Shapiro was set to speak, having been rallied by the Students for a Democratic Society.  Inside the auditorium, however, the event went smoothly with Shapiro giving a rousing speech in which he debunked the Left’s hierarchy of privilege.

3. University of Wisconsin

“Racial diversity doesn’t mean anything. Decency means everything.” A small group of radical leftists crowded into a packed lecture hall and proceeded to disrupt Ben Shapiro’s speech by shouting slogans and even screaming about swastikas. A strange chant, considering Shapiro is an Orthodox Jew. The audience responded with chants of “USA,” “decency,” and “free speech matters.” The school administration refused to allow police to remove the disrupters, who, after 20 minutes, finally left on their own but continued to pound on the auditorium doors throughout the lecture. Shapiro went on to give an informative presentation on free speech and the leftist myths of white privilege, microaggressions, and safe spaces.

2. California State University, Los Angeles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIH3k_Cgy3A Sometimes the Left’s schemes to cancel an event backfire, causing even more students become engaged in the Conservative Movement.  This was the case at Ben Shapiro’s speech for YAF at CSULA.  Just three days prior to Shapiro’s scheduled appearance, the president of CSULA, William Covino, unilaterally cancelled the lecture. When YAF and Shapiro vowed to appear anyway, Covino backed down and reinstated the event. Hundreds of protestors flooded the University’s student union and physically blocked access to the theater in which Shapiro was scheduled to speak. Students eager to hear his remarks had to sneak in a back entrance three at a time. Shapiro gave an energizing speech, which inspired students of all stripes—even converting some protesters who have since become stalwart members of the CSULA YAF chapter.

1. The University of California, Berkeley

YAF broke the deadlock. Young America’s Foundation filed a lawsuit (which is ongoing) against UC Berkeley, because the school refused to provide YAF speakers a lecture hall. So when YAF decided to host Ben Shapiro at Berkeley, the school did everything they could to derail the event. Berkeley lied and said they didn’t have a lecture hall available. Thanks to YAF pressuring the school, we secured a hall, but Berkeley cut the venue in half, by not allowing students to sit in the balcony. Berkeley even tried to force students to pick up tickets to Ben’s speech days before the event—a dirty trick to discourage student attendance.  The school turned away hundreds of students at the door. Yet, despite all of this, 600 students heard Ben Shapiro. Because of YAF’s promotions, 10 million people have watched the address online, either at our YouTube channel, on our website, or through one of the many news sites that have shared it!