ACTIVISTS TALK NEXT STEPS FOR OPPOSING BANNON AT U. OF C.
Campus and community activists held a teach- in Friday evening to organize against an upcoming event at the University of Chicago with former White House advisor and Breitbart editor Steve Bannon.
Philosophy professor Anton Ford said it’s an embarrassment to the University of Chicago that a professor at the business school, Luigi Zingales, has extended an invitation to Bannon.
“Luigi Zingales is creating a media spectacle at the center of which is him,” he said to an audience of about 75 people at the FirstUnitarian Church in Hyde Park. “It’s a discredit to a university to treat somebody as having something to teach us just because they have ascended to power. . . . A lot of us are wondering, what is the academic value of this?”
Zingales’s research interests include the rise of populism, and he has said that’s a reason he’s interested in hearing from Bannon. But Ford said if there is some academic reason for a professor to talk to Bannon, it could be done in private, as opposed to inviting him to speak publicly and giving a platform to racism.
Samantha Eyler- Driscoll, who worked for a blog directed by Zingales and said she had to resign from its editorial board to speak out, said she couldn’t continue to be part of that platform after the professor invited Bannon. “I’m running this publication that he has basically hijacked to promote his beliefs about the necessity of debating with Nazism,” she said. “I didn’t want to be the figurehead of this platform.”
Zingales could not be reached for comment Friday night, but he has defended his invitation by saying it would be productive to hear what Bannon has to say.
The date of the event has not been announced, though U of C officials have confirmed it will be in the form of a debate. Organizers plan to hold two more teach- ins in the meantime, and they said a protest Downtown will be announced soon.