By Andrea Acevedo
Around 1,500 people, mostly San Antonio residents and some Trinity students, filled Laurie Auditorium Tuesday night to hear political commentator Dinesh D’Souza.
D’Souza, who received a standing ovation as he walked in Tuesday night, spoke on the history of the Democratic Party, on his relief of having Trump as president, and criticized the values of modern day Democrats.
D'Souza's visit was quite controversial among Trinity's students. After the lecture, many of the students lined up to ask questions countering some of D’Souza's viewpoints.
“How can you say that Trump makes America great when he is anti-science, denies global warming, anti-capitalism, he is protectionist, does not believe in free trade deals, and has shown a flagrant disregard for democratic institutions through executive overreach?” asked Christian Vargas, a junior biology student.
The controversy, however, started way before D'Souza even set foot on campus.
The event was organized by Tigers for Liberty, a student organization at Trinity. The organization has previously brought in speakers like media personality and political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos and marriage researcher and political philosopher Dr. Ryan T. Anderson. These conservative leaning speakers faced some form of resistance from liberal minded Trinity students, and D'Souza is the latest example.
In February, 228 of TFL’s promotional flyers, which were distributed to student dorms, were marked with protesting messages and returned to the dorms of TFL members. The act of protest quickly resulted in local news outlets, such as the Rivard Report, The SA Current and the San Antonio Express news, picking up the story of the defaced flyers.
The coverage resulted in increased promotion for the event. According to a Facebook post by Jonah Wendt, the co-founder of TFL, the organization had 500 tickets reserved after the news broke about the flyers.
The flyer incident also prompted university administrators to send out messages promoting free speech.
Dr. Deneese Jones, Vice President of Academic Affairs at Trinity, wrote to faculty following the incident, calling on faculty to "intentionally engage our students in meaningful dialogue and respectful listening activities as this event unfolds. Trinity University values free speech and the exchange of diverse ideas. This means political inclusiveness, too.”
Free speech on college campuses has been a hotly debated topic in the US following incidents like the violent Berkeley protests against Milo Yiannopoulos.
Despite the defacing of the flyers, Esther Kim, Director of Orientation Programs at Trinity University, said, “I think the incident that happened two weeks ago was just a handful of students that doesn’t represent the entire Trinity student body.”
When asked if Trinity students were exhibiting signs of unwillingness to listen to opposing viewpoints, Jan Johnson, the marketing director for Salem Media Group, a conservative news media company, said, “I don’t see that, because Trinity University brings well-educated students who’ve got well-educated opinions. So I don’t think it was a major issue.”
Community members Araceli and Luke Robbins heard about the flyer defacing but said the incident was rather tame compared to other campus events. “It didn’t seem as big as what happened at Berkeley, not as organized backlash.”
Following the lecture, Jamie Thompson, Director of Student Involvement at Trinity, said that the conversations on campus have been mostly respectful, while on other campuses there have been riots. "I think that the ways that our students are engaging and responding are reflective of the ways in which potentially they’re going to go out and engage beyond the walls of this campus. Listening and leaning in, instead of running wildly in the other direction,” she said.
“I was proud of our students for coming out tonight. The ones that did. They asked some pretty pointed questions,” said Trinity’s Dean of Students David Tuttle.
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