GCU to invite Ben Shapiro to speak on campus
Grand Canyon University will personally invite controversial conservative speaker Ben Shapiro to speak on campus, sidestepping the group that was trying to bring him to the school after communication with that group broke down Tuesday.
“We’re not going to work with this group any longer, but we will extend an invitation to Ben Shapiro directly,” GCU President Brian Mueller told The Arizona Republic.
Furor over the university’s Feb. 1 decision to cancel Shapiro’s visit to GCU had mounted over the past few days. It’s unclear whether Shapiro will accept the invitation once it’s made.
High-profile conservatives and media personalities like Hugh Hewitt and Megyn Kelly had condemned the school’s earlier decision and the university’s justification for why Shapiro
wasn’t allowed to speak.
“We got tremendous amounts of negative publicity, which obviously nobody likes,” Mueller said.
Prior to Mueller’s announcement on Tuesday, the group that sought to bring Shapiro to campus said the school was prepared to work with them and reverse its decision but had backed off without explanation.
The GCU chapter of the Young America’s Foundation, an organization for conservative youth that brings speakers to campuses, wanted Shapiro to appear at GCU. Representatives of the D.C.based organization traveled to Phoenix Monday and met with Mueller and other campus administrators.
At that meeting, YAF representatives claim, GCU agreed to issue a joint statement affirming students’ love of the university and setting a date for Shapiro to come to campus, according to an account published by Shapiro’s website the
Instead, after YAF sent a draft of the statement to GCU, the school returned the document with edits that appeared to place blame on the people who wanted Shapiro to speak.
The GCU-edited version included statements attributed to YAF saying the organization regretted not getting preapproval from GCU for Shapiro’s speech. And before YAF could respond to the changes, GCU shut down the discussion, according to the Daily Wire.
GCU spokesman Bob Romantic said the school tried to communicate with the group over the course of 24 hours, but YAF’s tactic seemed to be to delay the process and disparage the university on social media.
Romantic provided another draft of the proposed joint statement that was sent to YAF, but not included in the Daily Wire story. That draft did not include references to YAF not following the approval process.
Why did GCU first deny Shapiro’s visit?
In explaining its Feb. 1 decision not to host Shapiro, the private Christian university said its values aligned with Shapiro’s, but the school wanted to focus on unity. In a time of heated political rhetoric, the school is working to bring together people from all backgrounds to solve problems, GCU’s statement said.
“Based on the response we have received from some within the Grand Canyon community regarding the decision involving such high-profile speakers as Ben Shapiro, we have obviously disappointed and offended some of you,” GCU said.
But if Shapiro was allowed to speak on campus, it would have offended others, GCU said. Offending or disappointing people wasn’t the university’s intent, it said.
“It was, rather, to use our position as a Christian university to bring unity to a community that sits amidst a country that is extremely divided and can’t seem to find a path forward toward unity.”
Critics of Shapiro have called some of his views racist, homophobic and transphobic. Shapiro has said he doesn’t believe people can be transgender. He opposes marriage for same-sex couples but also doesn’t believe the government should be involved in marriage at all.
Shapiro’s visit was never scheduled
Shapiro had not yet scheduled a date to speak at GCU when the controversy erupted last week.
Young America’s Foundation coordinates six college visits each semester for Shapiro and had selected GCU as one of those campuses for this spring.
GCU’s YAF group has brought conservative speakers to campus in the past, YAF spokesman Spencer Brown said. For those events, the campus group filled out a request for an event and coordinated with campus police on logistics, Brown said.
But with the Shapiro event, the request was elevated for further review, he said. A committee of students and staff unanimously decided against hosting Shapiro, and recommended denying the event to Mueller, Brown said. Mueller agreed.
Mueller said the committee had concerns over Shapiro coming to campus because he’s a “polarizing figure” and the university is “hugely diverse.”
In this case, Mueller said, GCU’s normal process for scheduling an event wasn’t followed. YAF published on its website that Shapiro was coming to GCU before anything had been approved, Mueller said.
Brown was in Phoenix on Monday meeting with GCU administrators, including Mueller, to try to get the decision reversed.
Given the harsh negative public attention, Brown said he thought GCU would be more motivated to change their minds.
“I don’t know what they’re waiting for,” Brown said. “Some schools may think they can weather a storm, but I don’t think this is one that’s going to go away.”
Separately, Shapiro is scheduled to speak on April 9 at an event hosted by the conservative Center for Arizona Policy.
A conservative campus bans a conservative speaker
Part of the pushback appears to stem from the fact that the largest Christian university in the country had barred an appearance from a conservative speaker.
Other campuses seen as more liberal, like the University of California at Berkeley, have not allowed speakers with controversial views in the past. The canceling or shouting down of conservative speakers on colleges campuses has become a political flashpoint in recent years, and the subject of laws intended to prevent it.
Some religious colleges (and non-religious ones) have banned Shapiro. This week, Gonzaga University, a Catholic institution, reversed its decision to cancel a Shapiro event on campus.
“At Berkeley, this is what we expect,” Brown said. “At a state school, it’s a shame we expect it, but we expect it. At a conservative school that’s hosted other conservative speakers ... it’s just very surprising.”
Mueller said the move to cancel Shapiro’s appearance on campus wasn’t about suppressing conservative thought. The university is outwardly, openly conservative, Mueller said. It was about respecting the diversity of the student body, he said.
“This was not a liberal institution trying to keep conservative thoughts off its campus,” Mueller said.
Students planning protest on Saturday
Meanwhile, students were planning to protest GCU’s decision outside campus on Saturday. It’s unclear if the plan will go forward now.
Sean Headrick, a junior majoring in government, isn’t involved with YAF, but GCU’s decision still spurred him to plan a protest.
He said he’s a “passionate young conservative” who’s interested in government and politics, so banning Shapiro struck a chord.
“We don’t want to protest GCU themselves, they’re a phenomenal university. ... We just think they’ve made the wrong decision that is not reflective of us and our heritage that we hold, and we’d like to correct it and make it right,” Headrick said.
Some praised GCU’s decision
While some students derided GCU’s decision, others wrote in support of it.
Mattie Thielke, a GCU student who said she’s a liberal Christian, wrote a post on the crowd-sourced media website Odyssey that praised Mueller’s decision and said it affirmed why she chose to attend GCU.
Being a Christian doesn’t mean you have to be a conservative, she wrote.
“Thank you for remembering that Christianity comes in many forms and hate comes in one. Thank you for standing up for the marginal beliefs and promoting the long-standing message of inclusivity,” she wrote.