Protestors Seek to Silence Karl Rove at UC Santa Barbara

by Ryan McNicholas, Fundraising Chair for UC Santa Barbara College Republicans

It's always interesting to listen to protestors talk about free speech. Free speech to protest, free speech to question, free speech for all to make their voices heard. But, where they are fundamentally flawed is their understanding of free speech.

Karl Rove is coming to speak at the University of California, Santa Barbara next week. The College Republicans have been actively trying to bring him to campus since September, and it will happen. Yet, the last few weeks have shown that the campus left really does not respect free speech.

Groups on and around campus are actively trying to get the student government to take away their support of the event by taking away all funding for the College Republicans from the Associated Students. Last November, A.S. supported the event with $12,933 of student funds generated from student fees to support clubs on campus.

Each quarter the student government allocates nearly $130,000 to all kinds of groups on campus to bring speakers and host events. Not so many of these groups, well none, other then the College Republicans have been met with so much protest and organize effort to stop their event.

A student group is organizing massive protests and doing everything they can to stop Rove from coming to campus, because of this effort the CRs have been forced to foot the bill for extra security, which has cost over $4,000. Not only is it making it hard for the group to partake in its right to free expression by creating greater monetary costs, but the primary goal of stopping the event by the campus left seeks to silence the views of the CRs.

The protestors will rage and do what they can to disrupt the event, and once again, a conservative student group has to jump through flaming hoops just to host an event. The campus left needs to understand free speech is for all, not just for them, who only want to use free speech for their views.

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