Free speech?

Ben Moulse / The Breeze

Community members discuss implications of controversial speaker set to present at JMU next week

By ASHLYN CAMPBELL The Breeze

The JMU community has erupted into discussions of free and hate speech and who should be allowed on campus ahead of a lecture from Liz Wheeler, a conservative political commentator, titled “The Ideology of Transgenderism.”

The lecture, planned by JMU’s chapter of the conservative student group Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), is Wednesday at 6 p.m.

The event was originally going to be held in the Madison Union Ballroom, but due to security, the location was changed to the Highlands Room in the Festival Conference Center, according to a press release from YAF on Wednesday afternoon.

According to the press release, doors will open at 5:30 p.m., an official standby line will start at 5 p.m. and at 5:45 p.m., any remaining seats will be given to those in the line. The lecture will start at 6 p.m. and a Q&A will take place with Wheeler.

YAF first posted about the event on Instagram on April 6, but the official topic of the event, the “The Ideology of Transgenderism,” was announced by the group in an April 17 post.

The post about the event started gaining criticism Monday night and has roughly 2,400 comments as of Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., most of which condemn Wheeler and the event.

The YAF Instagram hasn’t posted about the event since Monday, other than a clip of Wheeler on the account’s story where she discusses topics like abortion, pornography, hookup culture, gay marriage and the “transgender ideology,” calling them “sexual, social, cultural” crises.

Parker Boggs, the YAF chairman, didn’t respond to requests in time for an interview.

Other than the title of the event, no other information has been announced regarding what the lecture will include.

Several student groups, Harrisonburg organizations and academic departments have posted in support of the transgender community on Instagram, including JMU’s chapter of Epsilon Sigma Alpha, JMU’s Latin dance team Grupo Candela, the JMU women’s, gender and sexuality program, MACROCK and the Friendly City Safe Space.

“It is hard to be a trans person in a moment like this, to keep feeling the need to respond to hatred,” Director of the Friendly City Safe Space Hyacinth Bellerose said in a statement on Instagram. “By bringing Liz Wheeler to campus, James Madison University (JMU) has invited hatred and transphobia into our community. As hard as it is to be an individual trans person in a moment like this, I know that it is so much harder to respond when we feel isolated and cut off from our community, so Friendly City Safe Space will do whatever we can to support students during this time.”

Wheeler posted about the criticism and the event on her Instagram story and Twitter, where she has 239K and 917.6K followers respectively.

“I don’t hate you,” Wheeler said in one of her tweets in direct response to the Friendly City Safe Space’s statement. “The people propagating Queer Theory on your mind, body, & soul hate you. I care deeply about you. You ARE worthy, you’re worthy of being treated better than the abuse inflicted on your body in the name of transgenderism.”

Responses to the event included some advocating for JMU to cancel or stop the event, while others say the event should still be held because of free speech, although they disagree with Wheeler.

Ayle Morrow, a freshman who identifies as transgender, said they originally didn’t know who Wheeler was. But based on the title of the event, bringing someone to campus who viewed their identity as an ideology made it difficult to embrace who they are, they said. Wheeler’s topic is “hate speech,” and JMU shouldn’t hold it on campus or let it be affiliated with JMU, Morrow said.

“It’s really dehumanizing to have, like, my identity be a topic for debate,” Morrow said, “and especially over the past few days to see your classmates debating about if your identity is worthy of recognition.”

Justin Long, a graduate student at JMU, said he’d only heard of Wheeler once before the event, but the idea that someone would be prohibited from speaking when a student organization requested it was “pretty silly.” Long said JMU should let the event happen.

“Contrary to what I saw a lot on the thread yesterday, words are not violence, in my opinion,” Long said. “And I think if people are so afraid of an idea that they won’t let it be spoken or to even consider hearing it, I think that’s probably an idea worth hearing, frankly.”

Tim Miller, JMU vice president for student affairs, said in an interview with The Breeze that, as a public institution of higher education, JMU has a responsibility to uphold the constitution and allow students to host an event with a speaker of their choice in a content-neutral way, while also providing a space for other voices.

“That is at the heart of America,” Miller said. “I can disagree with the speaker, I can disagree with people protesting, but it’s our job to provide the forum, both should be able to exist in tandem.”

Having worked at George Washington University in Washington D.C., Miller said he gets concerned about extreme speakers because he believes most people are closer to the middle politically. Miller said he “didn’t know if it’s a gift or a curse to be content neutral in our view of it,” but that it is his and JMU’s job.

“I worry about shock for shock’s sake,” Miller said. “You know, I think that we should be a place about learning and growing and helping people be challenged, but be challenged in a way that actually helps growth occur. And I’m hoping we can be that place. But that also means sometimes you’re gonna have speakers that people disagree with.”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the First Amendment protects speech — no matter how offensive. In Brandenburg v. Ohio, the ACLU writes, the Supreme Court established that the government can’t punish inflammatory speech unless it “intentionally and effectively provokes a crowd to immediately carry out violent and unlawful action.” The Supreme Court also ruled in 1942 that the First Amendment doesn’t protect fighting words, which is a limited exception.

Adam Steinbaugh, a legal expert at the nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) said in a 2020 Diverse Issues in Higher Education article that there’s no categorical exception for hateful expression.

Some comments on YAF’s Instagram discuss protesting the event. Junior Heather Dueñas is helping create a space to oppose it by gathering those who disagree and aiding the planning of an event at the same time as the lecture.

“I want this to be a space for the transgender community at JMU,” Dueñas said. “But it’s a collective effort. I’ve met with so many people that have been helping me.”

Dueñas said she thinks the Wheeler event should still happen, but she’s looking at holding an event that’s a celebration rather than a protest. She said the event is bigger than just Wheeler. Dueñas said it gets to the root of why she was allowed to come to campus and why the event was funded through student fees.

The Student Government Association (SGA) approved $3,000 in contingency funds for YAF to host Wheeler during its Jan. 31 meeting.

Contingency funds are money student organizations can apply for to hold events and go to conferences, among other things, according to their website. The money comes from student fees, and groups can get $3,000 per semester for funding.

Some SGA members have said YAF wasn’t clear about what the topic would be at the time of applying for contingency funds in the comment section of YAF’s Wheeler announcement post. The presentation YAF presented to SGA said the lecture would be on “a particular topic of our chapter’s choice.”

According to the minutes from the meeting where it was approved, two SGA members said the SGA should only approve the funds once the event’s topic was chosen. One member said Boggs presented three different topics for Wheeler to choose from.

Ultimately, the resolution to award YAF was unanimously approved, with two abstentions from Emily Butters and C Jasper. SGA Executive Treasurer Brandon Market didn’t respond to interview requests in time for publication.

As the week progressed, more members of the JMU community shared their opinion on the matter on social media. As of now, the YAF event is happening as planned, aside from a venue change, and counter events on the same day are in the works.

As the week progressed, more members of the JMU community shared their opinions on the matter on social media. As of now, the YAF event is carrying out as planned, aside from a venue change, and counter events on the same day are in the works

CONTACT Ashlyn Campbell at campbeab@dukes.jmu. edu. For more JMU and Harrisonburg news, follow the news desk on Twitter @BreezeNewsJMU.