YAF Meeting at Florida Atlantic University Shut Down

Perhaps you have heard Obama’s Chief Diversity Officer to the FCC or better known as the “communications czar” Mark Lloyd praise the way dictator Hugo Chavez took over the airwaves in Venezuela.

The chilling effect of censorship was felt when four FAU students and an alumnus were forced to stop an informational meeting about starting a conservative organization on campus after.

In this article Florida Atlantic University Officals Shut Down and Harass YAF Campus Organizers for Discussing Liberal Bias on Campus, it describes how Young Americans for Freedom were told they had to leave the meeting room by a univeristy official.

“While Diaz was speaking at the informational meeting, David Blank, a university administrator, asked the group to leave the room. Diaz asked Blank for fifteen minutes to finish speaking and Blank politely agreed to allow the group to finish its meeting. Upon hearing Diaz address the liberal bias on the FAU campus, Blank stopped the meeting again and boorishly ordered the students to vacate the meeting room. Blank the shut off the room lights, tore down the group’s promotional posters, and called the campus police.”

This does not come as any surprise to those of us who have worked at any level in the educational system and it does not bode well for freedom of speech. Further,

Ben Buck, an FAU student at the meeting said, “We were sitting in a peaceful meeting, just discussing a new organization, when we were approached by an administrator asking us to leave based on the content of our discussion regardless of previous verbal permission to talk on public property.”

…As the students and Diaz were leaving campus FAU police detained and interrogated the group. Shackelford and Diaz were ordered to drop their meeting materials and to present identification. Diaz asked if they had broken any laws. The officer said, “we are investigating a possible trespassing charge and that is why we need to see your identification.”

Diaz concluded, “The university is no longer a place of open discussion and freedom of expression, but a breeding ground of intolerance for conservative beliefs.”