#SafeSpace: Jason Riley, Black Conservative Journalist, Disinvited from Virginia Tech Speech When They Realize He's a Black Conservative

Guilty of Thinking While Black.

A prominent conservative intellectual and critic of identity politics has been disinvited from a scheduled lecture at Virginia Tech over concerns about his race-related scholarship.

Jason Riley, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a Wall Street Journal columnist, was slated to speak at a lecture series hosted by the university’s business school, the BB&T Distinguished Lecture. But Virginia Tech higher-ups worried his controversial opinions would cause a scene.

"Mr. Riley, who is black, has attracted some negative attention since his publication in 2014 of Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed," wrote National Association of Scholars President Peter Wood in the pages of National Review, which broke the story.

According to a memo obtained by Mr. Wood, the head of the Virginia Tech Finance Department, Professor Vijay Singal, vetoed the speaking arrangement. He worried the campus was still recovering from the last BB&T Distinguished Lecture, which was delivered by Charles Murray on March 25.

"Still recovering" from a lecture -- you know, like a battalion of badly shot-up troops needs to recover from a battle.

As mentioned there, National Review broke the story:

The head of the finance department had not initially objected to Riley as the next BB&T speaker but later, when he realized that Riley had"written about race issues" in the Wall Street Journal, he decided Riley would have to go. The department head and others in the finance department "worried about more protests from the looney left" and were unmoved by arguments that it was wrong to give in to such intimidation.

...

What makes Jason Riley’s disinvitation notable, though, is how little prompted it. No students threatened to protest his speech or wrote editorials denouncing his views. No one picketed the finance department. Riley’s speech hadn't even been announced on campus. Mere fear of potential protest swayed Virginia Tech to cancel Riley’s pending event.

It gets worse. Because now Virginia Tech is claiming they never invited Jason Riley in the first place.

Read their claims here. They say it wasn't an "official" invitation.

[A] Virginia Tech official said on Tuesday that Mr. Riley's invitation could not have been revoked because it was never extended in the first place.

This sure sounds like an invitation:

"I don't buy this line that I wasn’t invited," Riley said when reached by telephone Tuesday at his Manhattan office.

He said he first received an invitation from Tech finance professor Douglas Patterson about three weeks ago. That invitation included past lecture series speakers, topics and logistical information about spending the night in Blacksburg.

"Based on my understanding of the English language it sounded like an invitation to me," Riley said.

Why is Virginia Tech lying about him not being technically "invited"? For the same reason an adulterous priest continues to give sermons about fidelity.

The left no longer believes in free speech. They are having wild, passionate sex with censorship. The sex is hotter because it's illicit and forbidden.

Yet, the community still expects them to pretend they believe in fidelity to free speech. They might feel a certain obligation to pretend to still believe in it.

But they don't.

They're censors. What they believe in is #SafeSpaces and #RecoveryPlayDoh.

But they still have to put on this sugar-wouldn't-melt-in-our-mouths purity act about giving a shit about free speech.

Our universities are now the most hostile place in the country to actual thought.

What can't go on, will not.

posted by Ace at 11:03 AM

| Access Comments