More from FIRE on the NYU event:
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“[T]he students were allowed to admit only 75 of the approximately 150 off-campus guests who had registered. Stephan Walker, the vice president of the Objectivist Club, confirmed to FIRE that even several members of the media had to be turned away.”
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“Later, Lukianoff and a blogger both observed a student being forced to remove a shirt depicting one of the cartoons.”
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“Finally, following through on plans divulged in an e-mail in FIRE’s possession, members of the Bengali Student Association apparently obtained and then ripped up many of the student tickets for the event. Walker has a bag of these torn-up tickets.”
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“As an NYU spokesman told Inside Higher Ed, the university’s objection to the cartoons is based on the fact that ‘an important group in our Muslim community made it clear that they found the display of the cartoons deeply offensive.'”
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“The spokesman also told the New York Sun that ‘it wasn’t necessary to show the cartoons to discuss them.’ … [T]he spokesman said the following to NYU’s student paper: ‘Realistically, one can have a discussion on smallpox without actually handing out the the live virus to the audience.’ [But] making decisions about what is too offensive to be shown to people is none of NYU’s business — and infecting people with smallpox is not the same as showing them a cartoon[.]”