Identity of Speakers
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James Lindsay
Unaffiliated
OtherAmerican Author, commentator, and conspiracy theorist.
Resources
Additional Information
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Incident Nature:
Recognized student group event
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Incident Political Orientation:
Right wing -
Incident Responses:
University investigation not issuing in sanctions
Faculty sanctioned
Student sanctioned
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Incident Status:
No litigation
- Was Speech Code incident
Summary
The Associated Student Government at Northwestern University halted the Northwestern College Republicans funding after claiming that flyers used to promote an on-campus event violated the university’s harassment policy. The flyers were promoting an event on-campus highlighting commentator James Lindsay, an American author and critic, commonly known for his promotion of conspiracy theories. The claim was rooted in the argument that the flyers were violating discrimination and harassment policies held by Northwestern.
The student government was aware that they could not suspend the group from having a speaker on campus, therefore took the approach of suspending funding. The group argued that they were not informed of the meeting that voted on the suspension and argued that it was an attempt to weaken their freedom of expression and speech.
Northwestern administrators determined that the flyers were protected expression and did not need further investigation into the matter. The College Republicans regained their funding, but stated their concern that this incident would make other clubs fearful for their protected expression.
