I organized and supervised the Steven Crowder event on
Jan. 22 and thought it went quite well. Outside of a couple of protestors, I
think a lot of students would agree with me. One such protestor was Nicholas
Provenghi, who wrote an op-ed in the Jan. 28 issue of The Mercury titled
“Steven Crowder harms debate: Change my mind.” I would hate for his article to
be the main takeaway from our event, so I hope to respond to some complaints
that he and other protestors raised and engage in a little discourse of my own.
First, many wonder why we invited Steven in the first
place, a question that has been lobbed at my organization since the previous
time he was here. The answer to this is simple. Almost every student
organization tries to bring speakers occasionally to gather interest to their
respective organizations, and many of these speakers charge high fees. When we
invite Steven Crowder here to film his “Change My Mind” videos, it doesn’t cost
us a penny, but it also generates a substantial amount of student interest in
our weekly meetings.
Second, some have said that hosting an event centered on a
debate about a border wall is racist or xenophobic since UTD is a very diverse
campus. This view is untenable. Had Crowder gone to a predominantly white
campus to talk about building a wall, the accusation would have been that the
students he was interviewing would not be diverse enough. They cannot have it
both ways, and the way I see it, UTD’s diversity probably led to more
interesting responses.
Third, there is the accusation that Steven Crowder is
simply too provocative to contribute anything positive to the UTD student body.
While it is Crowder’s job to make hot-button issues such as gun ownership or
combatting illegal immigration interesting and digestible for people on the
internet, that has not endangered quality discourse on our campus. In fact, I
would suggest it has led to more meaningful and higher quality conversations on
campus. UTD often seems like a relatively apolitical school, so it can be
difficult to gauge what students think of these issues. That is one of the
reasons why it is useful to bring someone like Crowder here intermittently. It
helps give a snapshot of what students think about divisive issues, whether in
the event itself or the coverage following it. UTD is filled with bright
students, so I expect that a lot of students can give substantive responses to
whatever view Crowder chooses to articulate.
If you think I’m wrong, come to a UT Dallas College
Republican meeting and change my mind.