Paul Kengor: When cancelers cancel themselves

I wrote here recently about attempts to cancel three Pitt speakers sponsored by conservative organizations, including swimmer Riley Gaines and Daily Wire commentator Michael Knowles. The effort was led by LGBTQ forces and Pennsylvania Democratic state Rep. La’Tasha Mayes, who threatened to cancel the university’s funding. Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher defended the rights of students to host them.

I was particularly struck at the cancelers — who always demand “diversity” and “dialogue” — seeking to cancel the Knowles event, given that it was a debate, namely, with Deirdre McCloskey, a well-known transgender economist.

Yes, a debate. Can’t we even permit people who want to debate to debate one other?

Apparently not. Under intense pressure, McCloskey pulled out.

In turn, the organizations hosting the event, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) and Pitt College Republicans, looked for another opponent for Knowles, and they found one — Brad Polumbo. Polumbo is gay and a libertarian.

The event went through, but not without outrageous antics. The mob that assembled outside burned in effigy a cut-out of Knowles.

Polumbo was scared, and baffled. “I was quite literally there to defend trans rights,” he wrote in Newsweek. As he sat on stage, he heard “multiple loud explosions off in the not-very-far distance. ... It turned out to be simply fireworks or smoke bombs, according to reports, but in the moment we all feared it was something worse.” Said Polumbo: “Activists had me scared for my life.”

Pitt police issued a “public safety emergency.”

ISI , a group founded by William F. Buckley, Jr., who for decades hosted PBS’s Firing Line, famous for its vigorous debates between conservatives and liberals, spent $20,307 on security and bodyguards, including 28 police officers.

As a Pitt alum, this is terribly embarrassing. Defenders of the protesters might say these were simply highly upset LGBTQ students, angry at Knowles’ statements on transgenderism. But as seen repeatedly by ISI and other conservative student organizations, like the Young America’s Foundation and Turning Point USA, this behavior is unfortunately typical. I’ve experienced it, including at Pitt.

In September 2017, I moderated an ISI-sponsored debate in that same location at the William Pitt Student Union. I have a fond connection to that building. My wife and I met there in the late 1980s as editors at The Pitt News, a place where liberals and conservatives alike supported free speech. The ISI debate that I moderated was on immigration. The progressives in the audience behaved like children, yelling, booing and — most memorably — blowing kazoos. They had to be pulled out by police.

Particularly remarkable, the debater from the libertarian side (once again, progressives didn’t join the debate) was way to the left on the immigration issue. He was dumbfounded at being shouted over by people who wouldn’t listen to his position that was to the left of theirs!

They had not come to listen. They came to shut down.

That brings me to the Pitt debate with Knowles, Polumbo and a brilliant moderator, Leah Sargent.

It was excellent. If you’re looking for a great example of conservative vs. libertarian positions on the issue, Knowles and Polumbo delivered, as did the respectful Pitt students who engaged in civil discourse with thoughtful questions.

But notice what wasn’t represented: the progressive position, the LGBTQ position. It removed itself. ISI and the Pitt College Republicans invited that voice, and what did the voice do? It shouted outside.

Students who attended heard an intelligent exchange between a conservative and libertarian, but were left wondering what the progressive- LGBTQ position is. They surely figured that the progressive-LGBTQ side fears debate and doesn’t want to be challenged, and that its arguments are too weak for scrutiny.

That side came off as shrill, close-minded and worse.

A telling moment occurred as Knowles began to speak. A student from the progressive- LGBTQ side started haranguing. As she was removed from the room, another student shouted “fascist!” That student leveled that charge not at Knowles but the protester.

Those who stayed for the ISI debate were treated to just that — a debate, a good one. The cancelers of the cancel culture succeeded in just one thing: canceling their own voice.