Empower Wisconsin | Jan. 14, 2020
MILWAUKEE — Crying, ‘Hate Speech!,” some liberal social network warriors have called for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to shut down President Trump’s political rally.
Typical of the “love trumps hate” crowd, these Trump haters spouted off before having all the facts.
While the rally is set to take place tonight at the UWM Panther Arena, the university has nothing to say about who speaks there. As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, the school neither owns nor books the facility. UWM purchased naming rights to the building in 2014 but only has scheduling authority over its own events.
No matter, the painfully woke say. They’ve labeled the president’s event a ‘hate rally.’ As modern liberals so often do, they insist the First Amendment should only go so far.
In short, the president, his ideas, his supporters, should be silenced.
“I know there is free speech, but I think when it’s so divisive and negative and hurtful, that there has to be a line drawn somewhere and UWM has been terrible about that,” Kami Yelk, a UWM junior and chairwoman of the College Democrats of Wisconsin, told the newspaper.
While UWM has often caved to the politically correct, Chancellor Mark Mone stood by full free expression — at least on this occasion.
“As a public university, we do not restrict the use of our facilities based on the content of any individual or entity’s message,” Mone wrote. “Such viewpoint neutrality is consistent with our commitment to free speech and academic freedom and is legally required of us as a public entity,” he wrote in a recent letter to faculty, staff and students.
