UPDATED: April 11, 2020 at 11:56 a.m.

Several students have drafted a resolution condemning Ben Shapiro’s planned visit to campus in October. 

The resolution refers to the conservative political commentator as a “white supremacist.” Justine Hastings and Ryan Golden, respective candidates for SA president and vice-president, are among the resolution’s authors.

SA’s Finance Board approved the College Republicans’ $39,000 request to invite Shapiro on Monday. An official date for the event hasn’t been set. 

Shapiro currently serves as editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire, a conservative news and opinion website he founded in 2015. He has gone viral on social media several times in recent years for making controversial comments, many of which the resolution’s authors included in their document. 

The resolution references that Shapiro has said civilian casualties in Afghanistan and the West Bank are “ok by me,” and that he believes transgender people experience mental illness. The resolution also states that Shapiro has “attempted to downplay the role of slavery in the founding of the United States.”

The authors of the resolution request that “whatever measures are necessary” be taken to prevent Shapiro’s speaking event from taking place. 

Hastings and Golden, who posted the resolution on their campaign’s Instagram page, said they are not against bringing political speakers to campus. 

“We are strictly against bringing guests who harm our campus community through hate speech, including, but not limited to, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist and xenophobic remarks,” Golden and Hastings state in the Instagram post. 

SA’s Finance Board said Tuesday in a campus-wide email that its Finance Codes do not allow the board to consider a speaker’s ethics or morality when making its decisions. The Finance Board funds budgets that adhere to the Finance Codes and are prepared correctly, they said. 

“The College Republicans were funded for a speaker,” the statement reads. “That speaker was a choice of that organization, not the Student Association Finance Board.”

After funding approval, student organizations work with a student activities coordinator and the Department of Public Safety to vet guests and ensure the safety and security of the SU community, the Finance Board said. 

Shapiro’s visits to college campuses have often resulted in protest. Hundreds of protesters swarmed University of California, Berkeley in 2017 as Shapiro spoke, and police shut down large swaths of the campus for security purposes. Students at Boston University protested Shapiro’s November 2019 visit. 

In fall 2017, the Student Association denied College Republican’s request to bring Shapiro to campus, telling the group they needed to rent out space before requesting funds. 

Shapiro hosts The Ben Shapiro Show, a daily political podcast and live radio show. He has also written ten books, focusing on issues of free speech, political correctness and bias in American higher education and media.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this post stated that the resolution had been submitted to SA. The resolution is currently being drafted. A previous version also incorrectly stated that members of SA authored the resolution. The Daily Orange regrets these errors.

Published on April 7, 2020 at 3:07 pm

Contact Michael: msessa@syr.edu | @MichaelSessa3