CA university gets post-Shapiro lawsuit

A lawsuit has been filed against California State University-Los Angeles, accusing it of unconstitutional suppression of free speech on campus.

In February, a student protest erupted at the left-wing university in an attempt to stop conservative columnist Ben Shapiro from speaking.

The university’s president cancelled the event just days before Shapiro’s appearance, citing a need for a more “inclusive event” with liberal views. But Shapiro announced he was coming anyway and the university caved in.

After being sneaked past a mob of protesters blocking access to the event, Shapiro delivered his speech on the topic, “When Diversity Becomes a Problem.”

Alliance Defending Freedom filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Young Americans Foundation, which has sponsored Shapiro’s campus appearances across the country.

At the university, YAF was threatened with a $600 fee for security costs.

ADF attorney Tyson Langhofer says it’s troubling that a university would allow faculty and students to disrupt a speech on campus. The lawsuit alleges campus faculty allowed the students to block entrances and told police to allow them to do so.

“And I think that every American needs to stand up and say, This is not right, this is not how universities were founded,” he tells OneNewsNow.

The Daily Signal reported that other plaintiffs include Shapiro himself, the CSU-LA branch of Young Americans for Freedom, and Mark Kahanding, a student at the university.

Emily Jashinsky of the Young Americans Foundation says at the time Shapiro and the conservative students were concerned for their safety.

“We are safely out,” Shapiro tweeted after the event, when he and the students were being escorted out of the building. “The police informed us they could not guarantee our safety or that of the student attendees if we went into the crowd.”

“It’s pretty unbelievable that in 2016, in the United States of America,” Jashinsky says, “anybody should have to have concerns about student safety because they went to see a mainstream, New York Times best-selling author talk about his concern with bullies.”

The lecture halls at campuses have been packed with students wanting to hear Shapiro, says Jashinsky, because of their concern about the leftist ideology they’re subjected to in classrooms.

—-