Tomorrow, Stanford College Republicans (SCR), in partnership with YAF, will host Dinesh D’Souza in Cemex Auditorium. No tickets are required for students, as students simply need to present their SUID. During his lecture D’Souza will discuss the racist and totalitarian history of Progressivism, and he will make the moral case for Trump’s border wall. As with every other SCR event, our goal is simple: we aim to give our peers the mere opportunity to hear conservative ideas if they are interested.
However, the leftist response has been typical: deny fellow students the opportunity to hear conservative ideas. After failing to kill the event administratively, leftists have resorted to spreading misinformation about D’Souza.
We have already debunked these smears in a Stanford Review article, but to summarize, accidentally retweeting offensive material and then publicly apologizing is not evidence of racism or anti-Semitism; criticizing George Soros is not anti-Semitic, nor is pointing out that ‘Democratic’ Socialism and National Socialism share common totalitarian economic and ideological roots. Although we disagree with D’Souza’s opinion that “Western decadence” partly prompted jihadists to lash out at the U.S., to say that such a view is somehow anti-Semitic is intellectually dishonest. The accusation that D’Souza’s commentary in The End of Racism is somehow pro-slavery is ludicrous, though it is unsurprising that leftists would level such an accusation against someone who has so meticulously exposed the fact that it was Democrats and Progressives who championed slavery and Jim Crow.
Planned Parenthood’s president visited Stanford on Tuesday. Planned Parenthood is an organization founded and admired by eugenicists for the purposes of “racial hygiene” which to this day disproportionately kills black and brown babies and has been responsible for mass infanticide of millions of victims. Did SCR attempt to stop the event from happening, or destroy advertising materials for the speaker or demand the administration formally condemn the event? Of course not. We’re adults, not puerile, insipid, aspiring authoritarians who think intimidation and indignation constitute an argument. Rather, we defend our beliefs, as we did last month during a tabling event in White Plaza. Stanford’s mission is to discern truth via an open exchange of ideas and an absolute protection of Free Speech, no matter how offensive a speaker may be.
In the last year, anti-Semite and terrorist sympathizer, Linda Sarsour, and domestic terrorist, Angela Davis, spoke on campus without incident. The fact that the party of slavery and the KKK now wish to silence an Indian immigrant for the crime of pointing out their unsavory history and the myth of their so-called ‘party switch’ should not be lost on anyone.
Anyone who has misgivings about Dinesh D’Souza is welcome to come to the event and ask questions.
SCR has the right to sponsor and fund events that advance its mission. We know the ASSU procedure and the bylaws better than anyone and assiduously work to comply with them. We will continue to bring conservative speakers to campus; a University is a marketplace of ideas. Deal with it.
Contact Michael Whittaker at mwhittak ‘at’ stanford.edu.