The University of California, Irvine suspended its chapter of the College Republicans for a year because the group wanted to invite libertarian provocateur Milo Yiannopolous back to campus, Breitbart News reports.
The UC Irvine group hosted Yiannopolous about a month ago, during which he held a talk called “Social Justice Is Cancer.” UCI administrators met with several students in the group after the event, and one of the students mentioned that the group might host Yiannopolous again.
Just hours later, the group was informed that it is being suspended for a year.
The school claimed that this was because of a problem with insurance for the security that was needed for the event where Yiannopolous spoke.
This isn’t the first time that UC Irvine has ruled against the group. According to Breitbart, “UCI had already attempted to make life difficult for the College Republicans. They attempted to impose an additional $1,000 fee for hosting the event, making the false claim that the College Republicans were hosting the event with a non-UCI organization.”
Ariana Rowlands, the student who proposed hosting Yiannopolous again, said that the suspension was unfair. “We wanted [Yiannopolous’s] return to be a rally for young Republicans, just before the election, to invigorate and excite young conservatives to vote for the GOP. I told administration this, so it is clear that this suspension that comes during such a critical election year, is a political statement on behalf of UCI.”
But Rowlands and her fellow College Republicans are not afraid of the university’s administration.
“We are not intimidated and we will not back down, we are going to fight this and we are going to win.”