Campus divided after alarm derails speaker

WATERLOO — As the dust settles on the cancellation of a controversial speaker event at Wilfrid Laurier University, faculty and student groups are reflecting.

On Tuesday evening hundreds of demonstrators filtered through an outdoor space on campus ahead of a talk by farright commentator Faith Goldy.

An equally impressive number of people were lined up in an adjacent campus building, hoping to gain entrance to the Goldy event, but only 175 were able to fit into the room.

Goldy, who describes herself on

Twitter as a

“Catholic

Nationalist for Christ the King & Country,” was once a host with the far-right Rebel Media outlet. She was fired last year after appearing on a podcast associated with an American neo-Nazi website.

She was invited to campus by an unofficial student club called the Laurier Students for Open Inquiry; it was to be the first event in its “Unpopular Opinion Speaker Series.” Just before Goldy could start her talk, titled “Ethnocide: Multiculturalism and European Canadian Identity,” a fire alarm was pulled and the event was cancelled.

The school’s Special Constable Service is investigating.

Goldy promised she would return. “No date has been set yet. I’m ready to go when they are,”

said Goldy in an email to The Record on Wednesday.

Steve Wilcox, a professor of game design and development at Laurier, hopes that never happens.

“I’m thankful that at least until this point we have not provided a platform that facilitates the dissemination of hate,” he said.

Earlier in the week, Wilcox wrote an open letter to the president of the university and faculty association criticizing the university for allowing the talk to happen.

“Our campus is not a place to host these types of conversations,” he said. “Our students and our teaching environments are being compromised from a quality perspective.”

David Haskell, a religion and culture professor who is also on Laurier’s task force on freedom of expression, disagrees. He was at the Goldy event on campus and was disappointed it was cancelled.

“Being in favour of allowing someone to speak does not mean that you are unequivocally in support of what they say,” he said, adding that he in no way supports an ideology that favours one race over another.

“I was disappointed (the event was cancelled) because I had intended to use the question and answer period to ask some very challenging questions,” he said.

Ethan Jackson, a 26-year-old graduate student at Laurier who helped organize the demonstration, said he was happy with the way the evening turned out.

“Personally speaking, for my own self and not as an organizer, I am glad somebody was able to pull the alarm,” he said, adding that he does not know who did it and that the organizers behind the demonstration did not suggest it happen.

“Giving somebody who is a known white supremacist that kind of platform, is in no way academic freedom, it is in no way freedom of expression,” he said.

Graduate student Lindsay Shepherd, who is also the president of the Laurier Students for Open Inquiry, is furious.

“I’ve ruminated even more now — I’m fuming,” she said. “I can’t believe the censorship.”

Shepherd, made headlines last year after being reprimanded by two professors for showing her tutorial a video clip of a debate on gender neutral pronouns. The university later apologized.

While Shepherd said she disagrees with Goldy’s point of view on many subjects, she felt it important to hear what she had to say to discuss and challenge it.

Shepherd said she intends to reschedule Goldy’s event and hopes to hold it on campus.