‘Fascists Off Campus’ Students Protest Charlie Kirk At UC Santa Barbara
Last night, dozens of students gathered outside of Charlie Kirk’s speaking event at UC Santa Barbara to protest his appearance on campus. The crowd of outraged students chanted, “f*** Charlie Kirk,” “fascists off campus,” and held signs stating typical leftist slogans like, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” and “trans rights are human rights.”
Kirk spoke on one of the most controversial debates gripping American society and especially college campuses today: transgenderism. During his labeling event earlier in the day, he sat by a sign which read, “Transgenderism is a delusion.” Explaining that those who adhere to this misguided perception of the world around them not only reject reality but want reality to bend to their will.
The mainstream, cultural narrative regarding people who identify as transgender insists that men can be women simply because that is what want they to be. No aspect physical reality goes into their new definitions of “man” or “woman,” because if reality were allowed to have a say, their entire narrative would come crumbling down.
“We need to acknowledge and celebrate reality, in order to combat the normalization of the absurd.”
TPUSA Contributor Jobob — Live Free Tour
During his speech, Kirk complimented the university for being “welcoming” and “helpful” and applauded them for their willingness to host him. He also praised the students whom he spoke with earlier that day for being “generally very respectful” and very intelligent, although “misled on a lot of topics.”
Despite his kind words, the UCSB Dean of Student Affairs, Katya Armistead made it clear that she did not enjoy Kirk’s appearance on campus. Armistead told the Daily Nexus that she was “very proud of our students for expressing themselves.”
“I understand the importance of allowing a registered campus organization to have an event on campus, even though it doesn’t match the values of our university. So I’m really proud of our students.”
UCSB Dean of Student Affairs, Katya Armistead
One student interviewed at the protest explained why he believes Kirk should not have been welcomed on campus at all.
“I think people probably shouldn’t be welcoming. Whether he has a right to speak or not, that’s a completely separate conversation, but I think he should not be welcome here. And I think this is an appropriate-level response.”
Daily Nexus
Unfortunately, most students attending the protest agreed with this sentiment — that certain thoughts and opinions should be banned outright from college campuses.
“If our ideas were so terrible and did not resonate and were so bad, why did you have to spend your time screaming like a crazy person outside?”
“Obviously, at the root of radical left wing activists . . . is complete confidence that you’ve figured out the world.”
Charlie Kirk — Live Free Tour
The problem with the protests is not that they were sharing their opinions, albeit loudly, and using profanity to do so, but that they refused the open invitation to pull up a chair and engage in healthy dialogue and debate with people they disagree with. Their outrage is driven by ignorance, and a refusal to accept that some people have different viewpoints.
To their benefit, these students are conditioned by the universities they attend, the professors they listen to day in and day out, to believe that anyone who disagrees with their worldview is racist, transphobic, homophobic, oppressive, and evil. They are not given any tools to debate other ideologies because their point of view is indefensible, which is why they bring the bullhorns and megaphones to hopefully shout down any opposition before they can expose this flaw.
