Some liberal students at Grove City College are not happy that YAF is hosting Matt Walsh on campus this month.
The Young Americans for Freedom chapter at GCC found their posters defaced and thrown on the floor this week, with one being scribbled with the words “hate speech.”
YAF is hosting the Daily Wire’s Walsh on campus next week as part of the Robert and Patricia Herbold Lecture Series.
It is the latest in a string of attacks conservative students have encountered nationwide for daring to bring a conservative viewpoint to campus. Last fall, conservatives at Stanford found their displays advertising their upcoming Ben Shapiro repeatedly vandalized.
Paul Kengor, a professor at Grove City College and New York Times bestselling author of 15 books, noted his disappointment with the vandalism. “What’s most disappointing is that Grove City College has, of course, always been welcoming to conservative speakers in a way that the vast majority of other colleges have not,” Dr. Kengor told YAF. “Liberals at those colleges preach diversity, tolerance, free speech, and dialogue, but they often do not practice it when it comes to intellectual diversity…Tolerance is not about tolerating only ideas and people you agree with. Tolerance is about tolerating ideas and people you disagree with. This is a blow to tolerance. I’m hopeful that it doesn’t represent the views of many people here. I don’t think it does.”
Whether these vandals like it or not, Matt Walsh IS coming to campus to provide a unique perspective. Even at a school as conservative as GCC, it is apparent that this viewpoint still needs to be shared. These vandals can choose to continue to be childish in their destruction of property, or they can grow up and participate in the Q&A portion of the lecture––allowing for the free and open exchange of differing viewpoints.
