Progressive Ohio State Students Plan Protests Ahead Of Charlie Kirk And Candace Owen’s Speech
After failing to get the event canceled, a group of radical, progressive students plan to protest ahead of Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens’ speech at Ohio State University this evening.
Turning Point USA Founder and CEO Charlie Kirk and conservative commentator Candace Owens are scheduled to speak at OSU tonight at 6pm EST as part of TPUSA’s Live Free Tour at campuses around the country.
In the days leading up to the event, Columbus Revolutionary Student Front started a petition to keep Kirk off of OSU’s campus. The petition has only received just over 100 signatures, failing to meet its goal of 200 supporters by the date of the event.
“OSU Revolutionary Student Front wrote in their petition, “TPUSA seeks to remain trendy with their events and propaganda, often hoping to bait local activists into actions against them in order to prove that they are in the right.” This is the same campus club organizing and advertising the protests this evening, who later said in an Instagram post that “far-right extremists” would attempt to “crush a protest.”
This post outlines “5 TPUSA Protest Safety Tips” which recommends face coverings and ambiguous clothing for students attending the protest, so as to not be held accountable for their actions. The language used in the post refers to police in a negative light, falsely claiming that officers will attempt to “dox protestors.”
“We must oppose the normalization of bigots attending US college campuses at every step,” OSU Revolutionary Student Front wrote in the petition. The group also criticized TPUSA’s commitment to free speech, which is unsurprising coming from the students who are looking to silence and slander the ideological views of their classmates.
At every TPUSA event, we invite civil discourse from students who disagree with our values and mission. They are more than welcome to challenge viewpoints in a respectful manner, and make their voices heard — but unfortunately, very few ever choose to do this. They will echo the same lies and smears that they have heard online without a shred of evidence to support their outlandish claims, rather than engaging with these differing ideologies.
Just last week, students at UC Davis protested Kirk’s speech and did so by breaking doors and windows at the very school they attend, spray painting walls, and vandalizing property. It is incredibly sad that students would rather exist in a progressive echo chamber than have productive discourse with their classmates and peers. Apparently, only certain viewpoints are acceptable to the proponents of “academic freedom.”
I will be at OSU this evening to bring on-the-ground coverage of the Live Free Tour — follow along on Twitter or Instagram.
