Statement on Milo Yiannopoulos at New York University

In October 2018, Professor Michael Rectenwald invited professional provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos to speak to his class at New York University (NYU) on the “politics of Halloween.” Amid dissent from the community, John Beckman, senior VP for public affairs, published a statement explaining that Yiannopoulos would be allowed to speak as invited. Subsequently, Mayor Bill de Blasio requested that the university delay the visit for public safety reasons, considering nearby Halloween parades and NYPD assessments of risk. President Andrew Hamilton complied and the talk was said to be postponed, although it ultimately never took place.

“Many institutions in our society speak with a single voice. That is not true of universities. The role of universities is to be a forum for many voices and many ideas, sometimes even ideas that are repudiated by much of the community. A controversial speaker’s appearance at a university must be understood not as the institution’s endorsement of the speaker’s views, but as the fulfillment of its commitment to the free exchange of ideas.”

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• Is clearly based in values, grounding the decision to permit Yiannopoulos to speak in the ideal of academic freedom.
• Acknowledges that some of Yiannopoulos’s views are at odds with the institution’s values.
• Makes a strong case that the free exchange of ideas is paramount even when ideas offend.