The presence of and subsequent talk delivered by Cherise Trump at SUNY Oswego on April 5 created tension on campus due to her viewpoints on the matter of free speech.

Trump is the executive director of Speech First, an organization that deals with protecting the free speech rights of students on college campuses across the country. She was originally invited to speak on campus by SUNY Oswego’s College Republicans as they start to hold events as a relatively newer club on campus.

However, this did not come without controversy as some students believe that Trump’s stance on certain subjects in the field of free speech goes against what SUNY Oswego stands for in terms of diversity, equity and inclusion. Ahead of the event, a protest was organized by a group of students with the goal of making the voices of those who felt threatened by Trump’s stances, heard. One such protester, Tyler Johnson, a “student leader” on campus said how important it was for their voices to not only be heard by Trump and the College Republicans, but the administration of SUNY Oswego as well.

“The main goal is … for the administration to know how we feel about the college uplifting this narrative of diversity, equity, inclusion and Title IX practices but not responding to our needs when we need them to,” Johnson said. 

Johnson made it clear that the protest was not just because Trump was there, “it’s bigger than that.”

The plan for the protest was to sit in the back of the auditorium where the talk was being held, hold their signs and then promptly leave once the question-and-answer portion began. This plan was executed exactly as described by Johnson.

Trump’s talk began around 6 p.m. in the Marano Campus Center Auditorium. She opened by saying how glad she was that there were people at the talk that disagreed with her.

“I’m actually very excited that there’s a lot of people here who disagree with me and disagree with my positions on issues because I do like to get a sense of your thoughts on various things,” Trump said.

In her talk, Trump spoke on topics such as how liberal America’s free speech clause is, the issues she has with college aged people being more moderate than ever before and the lack of debate within classes.

“What happens when you can’t engage in debate, what happens when you can’t learn how to engage with opposing viewpoints? You don’t even develop real convictions of your own,” Trump said. “You have to get push-back.”

She also said how microaggressions and apologetic culture when engaging in discussions have harmed the level of conversation within a classroom and that Americans should embrace their loud nature.

“Students don’t want to engage without apologizing, Americans are known for being boisterous and offensive, we should just kind of own it,” Trump said.

Most of the second hour of Trump’s talk was dedicated towards answering questions from the audience.

Immediately following the talk, College Republicans President Abigayle Jordale said that she believed the event went well and that it was a good starting point for them as they look to hold more events in the future.

“When we were thinking of having [Trump] come here, I thought it was the most tame thing someone could talk about,” she said. “Free speech, that’s something we should all love. So, I thought it was a good start to everything.”

In the future Jordale says that College Republicans are looking to have more speakers come to campus to talk about a wide range of topics such as the second amendment.

Photo by: Mackenzie Shields