Progressive Protest Hijacks Free Speech Event with Langbert

WBCR Spotlight Report
By Jaden Glasford, Ema Jimenez, Danielle Kogan, Xavier Rubira, Austin Santiago

“You are engaging in hate speech because you hate me and you’re speaking,” Mitchell Langbert told a crowd of protestors seeking to disrupt an event hosted by the Brooklyn College Young Republicans (BCYR) on December 6.

Tensions ran high between tenured Business Professor Mitchell Langbert and campus progressives at what was supposed to be panel. It iniitially featured three faculty members, but was changed by the student club and approved with just one faculty member prior to the actual event. Asked to be civil by staff from the Communications Office on multiple occasions, attendees from the progressive and conservative side of the political spectrum labeled one another fascists, racists, and bigots throughout the lecture-turned-Q&A all afternoon. At one point, Langbert said protestors were breaking the New York Penal Code by interrupting a public meeting and threatened to call the police. “Effete Millenials in Illiberal Universities” was attended by administrators from the communication office, Public Safety officers, students, and faculty– approximately 70 people in total.

At least 50 of those people came from organizations that originally protested Langbert’s presence on campus on October 4, including student leaders from the Young Progressives of America and Brooklyn College Student Union. When called on to speak, Langbert chose to ignore all questions regarding his attitude toward sexual assault outside of denying that he condoned it.

“They are delusional if they think they can make a career of demonstrating,” Langbert told WBCR News in an interview prior to the lecture, “The students who engaged in hate speech are not being well-served with skills to find good jobs.”Aside from a party blasting music from across the hall, protestors also sent students into the Amersfort Lounge to read aloud Langbert’s original post while he attempted to speak about the rise of the left on college campuses. Students danced to and sang feminist anthems that were temporarily launched into the lounge, moments after Professor Conor Tomás Reed of the Africana Studies and English Department read aloud the school’s policy on sexual assault.

“The Young Republicans decision to invite him to speak in a public forum is repugnant and honestly very cowardly,” said Reed, “I don’t think he should be allowed to speak on campus today. I think the Title IX investigation should result in him being terminated from this campus.”

“I don’t think it’s a step back. I think it’s important for people to hear differing opinions, I think it’s important for people to hear what he has to say because they judged him so quickly. I think that’s why we chose him specifically, to give him a platform, to kind of express himself and explain his point of view,” said BCYR Secretary Sarah Weber.

Weber said a few of their club members will attempt to grow the Republican presence on campus, and eventually form a Young Americans Foundation chapter on campus.

“He’s going to lose students, nobody is going to register for his classes, what’s the point of him being on campus anymore? He’s going to lose his job,” said senior psychology student Joshua Cassiano. Cassiano was taken aside by Communications administrators and Public Safety officers after prompting Langbert to think about his safety off campus, and warned not to threaten professor Langbert for what Cassiano said was Langbert “spouting white nonsense.”

Langbert is currently slated to teach between three and four online courses in the upcoming semester and told WBCR that the decision to teach classes exclusively online in Spring was made long before he published the controversial blog post.

At one point, student protestor Kellen Gold disconnected Langbert’s microphone from the electrical socket, to which Langbert responded only by speaking louder until BCYR student organizer of the event Christian Cozlov plugged the wire back in.

In the heat of the moment, students turned on each other to express their points of view. Cozlov and Gold accused each other of being close-minded and screamed about fascism after protestors continued refusing Langbert the opportunity to speak. It happened again when Weber pointed out the presence of what she felt was “extreme sexism” after being verbally berated by protestor Tess Stofko for being “a traitor to her own gender.”

“This is a huge victory because we rejected his racism and sexism,” said YPA founder Carlos Calzadilla-Palacio, “I think the Young Republicans essentially have endorsed his views by holding him as a speaker and it’s very irresponsible. It really shows their true colors.”

“So given the expectations, I think it was a big success,” said Cozlov, “I just hope that one day when I have Langbert again, that it’ll actually be more civilized.”

About halfway through the shouting match, an unidentified protestor standing in a crowd at the back wall shut off half of the lights. The move failed to distract those attending and attempting to ask Langbert questions and did not stop protestors in the audience from demanding he apologizes for the words in his personal blog post.

“I said a joke, you don’t like it,” said Langbert, “tough noogies. Tough noogies, guys.”