Campus Censorship Attempts Targeted Michael Knowles More Than Any Speaker In 2023 | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Zach Jewell.

    Students and faculty at American universities attempted to censor Daily Wire host Michael Knowles more than any other campus speaker in 2023, according to a database compiled by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

    Knowles appeared three times in the free speech organization's "Campus Disinvitation Database" last year as students and faculty at the University of Buffalo, the University of Pittsburgh, and Purdue University all tried to get the Daily Wire host's speaking events canceled. The three cancel campaigns against Knowles were all in reaction to his views on transgender ideology.

    None of the censorship attempts against Knowles were successful, however, and the podcast host spoke at all three universities even as protesters stood outside of his events, calling him a "transphobe."


    Daily Wire host Matt Walsh, women's sports advocate Riley Gaines, and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk each appeared twice in FIRE's "Campus Disinvitation Database" for 2023. None of the censorship attempts against Walsh, Gaines, or Kirk were successful either.

    Knowles' speech at Buffalo in March caused a stir as he came to the campus for the event shortly after stating that "transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely." LGBTQ activists took Knowles' comment - where he simply called for the culture to reject trans "ideology" - as a genocidal threat.

    "No even mildly reasonable person could have interpreted my words as insinuating any sort of violence," he said at the time, responding to the Left-wing outrage over his remark.

    The speech took place despite the calls for the University of Buffalo to cancel it after the university's president said it couldn't stop the student group from inviting Knowles since the group was abiding by university guidelines and state laws.

    Shortly after the Buffalo speech, Knowles attended an event at the University of Pittsburgh, resulting in more backlash. Within a month of Knowles' speech, Gaines and Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips also spoke at events on campus, which upset some students and faculty who circulated a petition calling for the university to prohibit them from speaking. But Knowles' speech, as well as Gaines' and Phillips' events at Pitt, went on as planned.

    Knowles then spoke at Purdue University, where the commentator again addressed transgenderism. Some students at Purdue organized a protest against Knowles while others hosted a block party "to eradicate transphobia," which included a drag show.

    While FIRE does not claim that its database is exhaustive, the list showed that all but one of the 27 censorship campaigns against speakers on campuses were attempts from the Left to silence Right-leaning speakers. Other notable speakers whose events were targeted by leftists include Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, author James Lindsay, and conservative commentator Liz Wheeler.

    The FIRE list also included federal judge Kyle Duncan, whose speech at Stanford University last March was disrupted by students who shouted at him while he tried to present his prepared remarks. When Duncan asked for an administrator to get the situation under control, DEI administrator Tirien Steinbach defended the disruption, telling the judge that "for many people here, your work has caused harm."


    In another instance of campus disinvites documented by FIRE, an event featuring Rep. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and State Rep. Dave Murphy in May was canceled after petitions from students and faculty at the Medical College of Wisconsin. br>
poll#201

Considering what real news is available for all to witness, and in great specificity, should one pursue what is true outside of the channeled realm of the corrupt corporate /legacy media, and: Is Institutionalized Corruption real, and is it a hindrance to sustaining our Constitutional Republic now, and for future generations of American citizens?

  Yes

  No

  Not sure

440 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?

poll#164

It has been far too many years since the Woke theology interlaced its canons within the fabric of the Indoctrination Realm, so it is nigh time to ask: Does this Representative Republic continue, as a functioning society of a self-governed people, by contending with the unusual, self absorbed dictates of the Woke, and their vast array of Victimhood scenarios?

  Yes, the Religion of Woke must continue; there are so many groups of underprivileged, underserved, a direct result of unrelenting Inequity; they deserve everything.

  No; the Woke fools must be toppled from their self-anointed pedestal; a functioning society of a good Constitutional people cannot withstand this level of "existential" favoritism as it exists now.

  I just observe; with this thoughtful observation: What will happen "when the Vikings are breeching our walls;" how do the Woke react?

845 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?