Education

Campus Leftists Have Already Tried To Disinvite A Dozen Conservative Speakers Three Months Into 2023

(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Alexa Schwerha Contributor
Font Size:
  • The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) operates a database to track how many times college students attempt to disinvite a campus speaker because they disagree with the speaker’s topic.
  • Students have attempted to disinvite 13 campus speakers so far in 2022 with 12 being conservative speakers, according to the database.
  • “We use the term ‘disinvitation incident’ to describe the controversies on campus that arise throughout the year whenever segments of the campus community demand that an invited speaker not be allowed to speak (as opposed to merely expressing disagreement with, or even protesting, an invited speaker’s views or positions),” FIRE’s Director of Faculty Outreach Komi Frey, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Left-wing students have already tried to pressure several universities to disinvite a dozen conservative speakers from being on campus three months into 2023, according to a database compiled by free speech watchdog Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

The database tracks which speakers college students from both liberal and conservative ideologies have attempted to block from speaking on campus because of their viewpoint by demanding the universities rescind the invitations, according to the website. The data is broken down by year and shows that of 13 attempts to disinvite speakers, a dozen were led by students more “left” of the speaker. (RELATED: Stanford Student Claims Freshmen Are Taught About Diversity, Equity And Inclusion, But Not Free Speech)

Conservative commentators Michael Knowles and Charlie Kirk and Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies Ilya Shapiro were named multiple times on the database, the website reads. Other names include former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, Federal Judge Kyle Duncan, commentators Matt Walsh and Cabot Phillips and Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

The database provides an outline of each disinvitation event including where the incident occurred and what the speech was about.

Knowles faced backlash from students at the University of Buffalo, University of Pittsburgh and Purdue University for speaking about gender and transgenderism, according to the reports. Students at University of Denver Sturm College of Law demanded Shapiro be disinvited for speaking about race and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Duncan spoke at Stanford University about COVID-19, guns and Twitter, and Walsh was supposed to speak at Washington & Lee University about gender but postponed after his family received unassociated threats.

University of Pittsburgh students pushed back against Phillips, who spoke about the media, and Gaines, who discussed efforts to save women’s sports, and George Mason University students are currently opposing a university decision to invite Youngkin to speak at the spring graduation ceremony on May 18.

Kirk spoke at Ohio State University and the University of California, Davis, this semester as part of his spring college tour, both of which discussed general political topics, according to the database.

The sole speaker students on the right appear to have attempted to disinvite is former President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos, who was invited to deliver the University of Notre Dame (UND) commencement speech for the 2023 spring graduation class. TFP Student Action began a petition to disinvite Santos and allege he is “pro-abortion,” according to the petition description.

“We use the term ‘disinvitation incident’ to describe the controversies on campus that arise throughout the year whenever segments of the campus community demand that an invited speaker not be allowed to speak (as opposed to merely expressing disagreement with, or even protesting, an invited speaker’s views or positions),” FIRE’s Director of Faculty Outreach Komi Frey, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We make a distinction between an attempt to censor a speaker and the actual end result of a speaker not speaking.”

People requested information about the rising trend of students attempting to disinvite speakers they disagree with after FIRE released its Disinvitation Report in 2014, Frey told the DCNF. The database was launched one year after to “allow anyone interested to utilize the data we have collected to do research and draw their own conclusions.”

The graph shows the number of disinvitation attempts per year.

The graph shows the number of disinvitation attempts per year. (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression)

There have been 548 attempts to cancel speakers on college campuses since 1998 with the highest annual reports dated in 2016, 2017 and 2019, Frey explained. There were only 32 attempted disinvitations in 2022 — 19 more than is already reported this year.

The disinvitation attempts are more likely to come from left-leaning students as 67% of the overall attempts were from the left while only 28% were from the right, she continued.

The graph shows the number of disinvitation attempts from students on the left and the right.

The graph shows the number of disinvitation attempts from students on the left and the right. (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression)

The report is consistent with surveys that show that conservative students are more likely than liberal students to self-censor on campus out of fear of retaliation. While one-in-five students admitted they cannot always speak freely on campus because of how others may respond, 42% of conservative students agreed to the sentiment while only 13% of liberal students did, according to FIRE’s 2023 College Free Speech Rankings report.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel