by Matt Lamb
The University of Memphis should make up for its past failures and allow Kyle Rittenhouse to speak on campus, the Alliance Defending Freedom says.
The Christian legal group recently sent a demand letter to school officials, asking them to let Rittenhouse speak this fall semester, improve security, and fix past problems with the ticketing system.
The letter also asks for a refund of the fee used to pay for security who ended up doing nothing to stop the disruption of Rittenhouse’s March 20 speech.
Rittenhouse is a Gen Z Second Amendment advocate, most known for shooting three men, two of them fatally, during a violent Black Lives Matter protest in Aug. 2020. A jury found him not guilty on all charges in 2021.
“A mob chased TPUSA members to their cars, hurled death threats, and blocked them from exiting,” ADF wrote in its news release. “The university then charged TPUSA $1,600 for security that stood idly by and allowed the mob to shut down the event. The University never punished any disruptor.”
Earlier this year, the university made a last-minute change to ticketing, causing confusion for people who had signed up days prior, as The College Fix previously reported. Though Rittenhouse ultimately delivered his speech, it included a walkout and harassment of Turning Point USA members after the event.
Curiously, the university changed the ticketing system at the last minute. TPUSA CEO Charlie Kirk alleged that activists were “tipped off” to the change, which allowed them to gobble up seats, which they ended up not using.
The demand letter asks University of Memphis to stop allow Rittenhouse to return, promise to stop disruptors, and train personnel on the First Amendment.
It also asked for a “litigation hold” on communications relating to the situation, suggesting a lawsuit could be in the works.
“The University of Memphis failed to uphold the Constitution and Tennessee law that protect free speech on college campuses,” the Christian legal group’s attorney Mathew Hoffmann stated in the news release.
“Instead of enforcing rules and empowering security to take action, campus officials allowed unruly students to issue a heckler’s veto at the expense of TPUSA,” he said.
“We are urging officials to right their wrongs and allow this event to take place again without any issue.”
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College Fix Associate Editor Matt Lamb has previously worked at Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action and Turning Point USA. While in college, he wrote for The College Fix as well as his college newspaper, The Loyola Phoenix.
Photo “Kyle Rittenhouse” by Kyle Rittenhouse and “University of Memphis” is by University of Memphis.
