The president of a student group bringing a conservative commentator to campus said the group is hoping to spark dialogue, not controversy.
Cameron Kawato, president of Young Americans for Freedom, said Ben Shapiro was invited to TCU to bring awareness about conservative perspectives and opinions. He is expected to talk about “leftist myths” of “white privilege, multiculturalism, institutional racism and inequity in America,” according to a YAF flyer.
Kawato said he does not want the speech to be conveyed as aggressive by those who do not share the same conservative views.
“I want [everyone] to ask questions,” said Kawato. “I really want them to challenge him, so they can possibly have their minds changed or think about these sort of things.”
Shapiro, who has a law degree from Harvard Law School, is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire, a political conservative American news website, and the host of the Ben Shapiro Show, a daily online podcast.
He spoke at the University of Missouri last November and was critical of the protests there that resulted in then-UM System President Tom Wolfe stepping down.
According to the Columbia Missourian, the University of Missouri’s news website, Shapiro gave a lecture titled “Truth is a Microaggression” to an overflow crowd.
“I hope a lot of people get to see our point of view,” said Kawato, a senior political science major. “And I hope maybe people who are already conservatives get to arm themselves with some facts and figures he’ll bring because he’s all about facts and figures and statistics.”
TCU recently named Dr. Darron Turner as the Chief Inclusion Office. This followed as a result of three TCU students who issued a 14-point list of demands for diversity measures to the university on Oct. 18.
“I really hope we can have a discussion, because we hear the left side every day…whether it be through many of the news sources, through professors who are the left or through Hollywood; but we would like to speak our voice,” said Kawato.
The speech will take place in the Brown-Lupton University Union auditorium on Nov. 2 at 7 p.m.
