No-Platforming Gavin McInnes Won’t Stop His Bigotry

Thomas Resnick is a student at New York University and guest contributor at Students For Liberty (SFL): the largest network of libertarian students in the world.

From the moment that I first learned about the event, I knew it wouldn’t end well. Recently, my local College Republicans announced that VICE co-founder and social commentator Gavin McInnes would be giving a speech at New York University. This was bound to attract the ire of dozens of students and other university members. Public drama is one of my guilty pleasures, so I was looking forward to attending and witnessing the response. In the end, the event was cut short after protesters repeatedly interrupted him. Outside the event, eleven people were arrested.

Here’s the thing: Gavin McInnes is a pretty terrible human being. His worries about an elaborate cabal of Muslims conspiring to destroy Western civilization are ridiculous. Whether it’s insisting that the Quebec City mosque shooting was actually a false flag operation, tenuously linking the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre to Islam because the perpetrator’s father was a lapsed Muslim, or his numerous apologetics for sweeping “national security” legislation targeting his bête noire while proudly and paradoxically referring to himself as a libertarian, McInnes’ disdain for Muslims is clear for all to see.

Many people rightly recognize this and believe that he shouldn’t express his views in public at all. To be clear, McInnes is a bigot and has little to offer academically. But no-platforming him, while tremendously well-intentioned, was mistaken. This behavior is sure to fail at achieving its purported aims.

For whatever reason, McInnes had an audience at NYU, which likely means that some people there were sympathetic to his views. The objective of those who eventually led to the event being cut short was to prevent the establishment of a platform for him to express his noxious views which were likely shared by a portion of the audience. Show or no-show, these folks are still going to retain their beliefs. It would be downright silly to suggest that widespread acceptance of these views is okay so long as they’re not expressed publicly, but this appears to be the prevailing point of view at these kinds of demonstrations.

The main issue with Trump supporters during this past election cycle was not that they expressed their views. The problem was that their candidate was able to ascend to power in a deeply ingrained atmosphere of intolerance. It was the attitudes they held — not their mere vocalization — that led to this outcome. I highly doubt that the actions on the part of last month’s demonstrators and those like them would have made much of a difference to such beliefs. Most likely, it would have hardened their stance.

It is thus the fundamentally sick nature of a society itself and the quiet presumptions underlying it that must be fought with reason and argument. What I witnessed at NYU did nothing of the sort, and may have made us all worse off. No-platforming can only ever address the outward symptoms of bigotry, and breeds a persecution complex among those who are denied a voice. The answer is, as ever, more speech — not less.

This piece solely expresses the opinion of the author and not necessarily the organization as a whole. Students For Liberty is committed to facilitating a broad dialogue for liberty, representing a variety of opinions. If you’re a student interested in presenting your perspective on this blog, visit our guest submissions page.