ALBANY — A group of state University at Albany students shut down a Tuesday-night appearance by a popular conservative who had come to campus at the request of a student organization to discuss free speech.
Ian Haworth, a writer and podcast host, had been invited by the UAlbany chapter of Turning Point USA, a conservative group.
But opponents hung a poster and crafted social media posts asking students to “drown out transphobia” by protesting the event. Haworth has said on Twitter that he “believes in biology and opposes genital mutilation being carried out on children.”
According to protesters and numerous videos posted on Twitter by Haworth and others, students responded by filling the meeting room at Assembly Hall and chanting epithets including “F__ you, TPUSA!” and “Ian sucks!” At one point, they formed an improvised conga line and called for Haworth to come out. When Avery Middendorf, the president of TPUSA at UAlbany, tried to speak, they drowned him out by shouting, “We can’t hear you!”
Meanwhile, Haworth was just outside a back door, waiting in a stairwell to be introduced.
One of the protesters, Mehr Sharma, said the protester had told TPUSA they would sit down when Haworth came in. But Middendorf said that was “categorically false.”
“I would’ve brought Ian out if they would’ve stopped,” he said. “I even talked to the police about it — do I bring Ian out with what’s taking place right now? And they said no, it’s like adding fuel to the fire.”
After an hour, Middendorf said, the UAlbany police chief told the crowd that if they stayed in the room, he would cancel the event. Police escorted the TPUSA members to another room. There, Haworth gave an abbreviated speech of about 20 minutes and police escorted the students to their cars.
“I was quite disappointed,”…
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