Juno News - Andy Ngo Speech Cancelled at UBC! - Interview with Angelo Isidorou

00:00:00.000 Hi everyone, it's Lindsay Shepard, Investigative Journalism Fellow with True North, and today I

00:00:10.560 have Angelo Isidori with me. He is the Executive Director of the UBC Free Speech Club. Now, the

00:00:16.920 Free Speech Club, on January 29th, so later this month, they were going to host Andy Ngo at the

00:00:24.280 UBC Robson Square campus. So Andy, he is an American writer and journalist. He's currently

00:00:30.260 editor at the Post Millennial. Now, he's well known because in June 2019, he was attacked by Antifa

00:00:37.560 members in Portland, Oregon. He got a milkshake thrown at him, he was kicked, he got a brain 0.85

00:00:43.240 hemorrhage, and he had his GoPro camera stolen from him. He was to present on Understanding Antifa

00:00:50.860 Violence, a lecture on radicalism, on January 29th. But UBC actually cancelled the UBC Free

00:00:59.320 Speech Club's booking. So, Angelo, first let's start off, what is the UBC Free Speech Club's

00:01:06.100 mission or mandate, and what sorts of events have you hosted in the past?

00:01:10.660 So, our mandate is to essentially platform different people with different ideas. We are essentially

00:01:17.400 event promoters. We want to really appeal to our members, who are at this point are in the

00:01:24.660 thousands, and just create interesting content, diverse content with, you know, lots of different

00:01:29.560 speakers that have interesting takes on things. So, for example, we began by hosting Jordan Peterson,

00:01:37.080 who we went on to host, I think, like five times overall. Then we've hosted Ben Shapiro, Stephen Hicks,

00:01:43.460 ContraPoints, a few others. And now what we were hoping to do in 2020 is do a lecture series on

00:01:50.920 radicalism, which we would upload to our YouTube. We upload everything to our YouTube. And Andy was

00:01:56.580 our first event, and he was going to talk about Antifa violence, since that's sort of what he's most

00:02:02.060 acquainted with. And, you know, in the ultimate form of irony, his talk on Antifa violence was

00:02:07.900 canceled because of Antifa violence. So, this situation is sort of problematic for us because

00:02:15.840 we rely on, like, public institutions, publicly funded institutions to host these events. A lot

00:02:21.880 of these events are controversial, so we know not to go to a private venue because they might just not

00:02:26.500 want to do it. Whereas with publicly funded venues, they have a mandate, they have a legal

00:02:31.820 responsibility to not be biased in their booking. So, this is going to become a problem for us for

00:02:38.880 the foreseeable future. So, with the Andy Ngo talk, when did you do the room booking? Was this,

00:02:45.440 like, a couple months ago or back in December? Yeah, I think we did the room booking in November,

00:02:51.660 and we did it for the Robson Square venue, which we've used tons and tons of times before. We're

00:02:58.380 super friendly with the people who work there. And we've actually never had problems there before.

00:03:02.700 We haven't even had security there. Just a couple months before that, we did Yasmin Mohamed.

00:03:07.940 We did her book launch there. So, you know, we booked it. It was approved. We paid the down payment.

00:03:14.040 We signed the contract. And it was all fine for a good while. Then, at some point, I think,

00:03:20.940 on right before Christmas Eve, actually, I get a call from the chief risk officer, which I missed the

00:03:26.780 first call. And then, the second call, he left a voice message that was very frantic, saying,

00:03:33.200 look, I have to get this message to you. The executive is just canceling this event, and that's

00:03:38.480 that. So, then I called him back, and we had about a half-hour chat about it. And, you know,

00:03:44.200 in the past, we always budget for security, because I know, even when I got this call, like,

00:03:50.760 okay, here we go. I'm going to get a call from the school that says, pay us a bunch of money for

00:03:55.020 security. So, I was totally prepared for that. But never in a million years did I think they were

00:03:59.860 going to be like, no, security is, like, not even an option. We're, our new take on this is just to

00:04:04.820 outright cancel stuff, because we have this Antifa problem now on campus.

00:04:11.800 And so, do you know what kind of threats they might have been getting?

00:04:15.840 You know, were they getting?

00:04:16.920 They didn't give me any specifics. They just said, if we look at the precedent recently with

00:04:24.960 Jen Smith and other speakers, we've been noticing more and more violence on campus from these groups.

00:04:32.660 And essentially, we don't feel comfortable doing this because we don't know how to secure it.

00:04:37.040 And so, that's that. And he even apologized, because essentially, we've had such a good

00:04:44.740 relationship with UBC Robson Square that when we book something, they just approve the event right

00:04:49.120 away. A, because I guess they like us, and B, because they have to, because they're a publicly

00:04:54.480 funded institution. So, I guess it took a while for that approved contract to get to the desk of

00:05:00.180 the executive, because UBC Robson Square and UBC Campus are a little separate. And when it got

00:05:06.160 finally to the desk of the executive, which was on the 22nd of December, they immediately had a

00:05:13.080 meeting and canceled it and told the chief risk officer to inform me of that. So, we weren't even

00:05:22.160 consulted on it. Security wasn't even an option. They're just saying, look, we don't know how to

00:05:27.400 handle these groups. And we're going to see. We're not saying Andy, no, never. But for the foreseeable

00:05:34.360 future, we want to see if maybe if we cancel these events and don't host them for a while, 0.99

00:05:39.480 Antifa will simmer down and go away, which I thought was stupid. But, you know, to each their 0.87

00:05:45.820 own, I guess. Has there actually been any UBC policy change on room bookings? Have they formally

00:05:52.200 changed any policy? No. And no, if anything, they floated that they've gone the other way with it,

00:05:59.060 where they, you know, they have this panel now on academic freedom. You know, they've essentially

00:06:05.180 said we're totally for free speech and all that sort of thing. But for now, this is the new direction.

00:06:12.260 We're going to see what happens. If this doesn't work, then we'll speak to the RCMP and maybe go

00:06:17.260 the other way. My take, and I think most people who understand how this works, is that if you cancel

00:06:23.800 events, you're emboldening people, you're emboldening protesters who are violent, and you're

00:06:28.340 making them think that they have power. So I told them they're not going anywhere. And I wanted to

00:06:33.660 know specific examples, because I mean, we've gotten threats ourselves. But I wanted to know if the

00:06:40.420 school has specific threats, and they wouldn't say so, you know, right now, my curiosity is mostly

00:06:47.680 associated with, did the school actually get threats, and they felt they couldn't secure it

00:06:53.660 and cancelled it? Or did they just cancel it because the school is worried about their image

00:06:57.080 problem, and wants to get back into the pride parade or whatever? You know? Well, I mean, actually,

00:07:01.960 you could probably file a freedom of information request regarding that. So maybe that's something to

00:07:06.520 do in the future. Absolutely. And so you mentioned one of the precedents to this might have been

00:07:13.480 the Jen Smith talk. So Jen Smith is like a local transgender activist. Their name is Jen, but they 0.99

00:07:20.200 go by he, him pronouns. I was aware that Jen did a talk at UBC, but wasn't the only incident that

00:07:27.140 happened was maybe one protester kind of waved a flag in someone's face. And that was it. I didn't

00:07:32.600 think anything actually happened. Yeah, that was. Yeah. No, no. But I think they were surprised by the

00:07:38.040 fact that there were protesters. Because this guy, the chief risk officer even mentioned, like,

00:07:42.320 we secured your Ben Shapiro event, we did your other events. Like, we've never really had

00:07:48.020 protesters before. We've had teach-ins, which aren't really problematic, but we've never really

00:07:53.120 had a big protester problem. Jen Smith was like the first example where there were hundreds of 1.00

00:07:58.180 protesters. And the school at UBC. Right. So the school was kind of, you know, if you look at videos,

00:08:05.800 they weren't really great at securing the venue. And then, I mean, that was amplified by the fact

00:08:12.960 that then UBC had this whole media issue where they got kicked out of the pride parade because they

00:08:18.420 platformed Jen Smith, which again, the school doesn't really have a say. But then that went on to the 0.83

00:08:25.640 other event, which I think was Ricardo Deschamps. And that one had some issues as well with tons of

00:08:33.240 protesters. So, you know, what peeved me about it is that if you look at our event in between those

00:08:38.500 events, the Jen Smith and the Ricardo Deschamps, we had Yasmin Mohamed. There were no issues at all.

00:08:44.120 There's nothing. I think you were at the Yasmin Mohamed event. There's nothing wrong at all with it.

00:08:49.820 So, you know, it's one of those things where it's kind of stupid. But then, look, I am aware that they 0.99

00:08:56.680 probably would have protested the Andy no one because he's controversial. He represents everything

00:09:02.720 they sort of hate and fear. So we were prepared for that. We had a budget for that. But, you know,

00:09:10.500 when the executive makes this decision, it becomes a problem because who are they to decide what's

00:09:17.740 controversial? You know, they essentially said, look, just bring someone who's not controversial.

00:09:22.820 And, you know, they said, well, we'll take bookings from you. Just don't bring anyone who

00:09:27.640 pisses off Antifa. And then Antifa wins, of course, with that. Yeah. Well, then they basically are

00:09:34.040 holding the school hostage. Yeah. So, I mean, Ron Holton. So he's the UBC chief safety officer. He

00:09:40.980 released a statement. Part of it said, based on this assessment of increased risk, we have canceled

00:09:46.280 the January 29th event booked by the UBC Free Speech Club, a group independent of the university,

00:09:52.140 in order to safeguard the safety and security of our community. And they always try to do this thing

00:09:56.740 where they distance you. Right. I think they call you a group independent of the university,

00:10:00.680 but aren't you composed of basically 100 percent people who are from UBC or alumni of UBC, that kind

00:10:07.180 of thing? Yeah, I mean, almost 100 percent. It's hard to say because we base it off of the Facebook. So

00:10:13.340 we'll definitely have like alumni and stuff like that. But I think they love to tout the fact that we

00:10:19.120 aren't part of the Alma Mater Society, which thank God we aren't, because if we were, they could have

00:10:24.260 just unilaterally canceled every event we ever do. So I think they hate the fact that we're a private

00:10:30.200 organization that is utilizing the public space. And they try to do that as much as they can. I mean,

00:10:36.440 the safety thing, it sucks that that guy is getting pulled into it so much because he was actually quite 0.97

00:10:41.480 cordial with me on the phone and even conceded to the fact that Antifa are basically violent thugs.

00:10:47.920 Um, but it's interesting because he's the chief risk officer. And yet, um, he told me that he was

00:10:55.020 just the messenger. So it's not that he did some kind of an appraisal. He said this came from the

00:10:59.740 executive, from the president, vice president, et cetera. And they said they don't want to do it.

00:11:04.860 They did their own assessment and they found that he was too controversial and they don't want to,

00:11:11.580 they don't want the school to host it. So if we're going into that territory, they're basically

00:11:14.920 treating the school like it's private property, um, or like they own it. And I think what people

00:11:20.400 need to understand and what they need to understand is that it's not any venue that is funded with

00:11:25.700 taxpayer dollars is technically, basically owned by all of us. It's owned by the government. So you

00:11:31.040 can't be politically biased in who you, who you book. Now their tact is, oh, well, health and safety,

00:11:37.080 you know, it's the, we got to protect our students first. Well, if we're going to do that now, if it's

00:11:42.860 going to be like the heckler's veto, you can bring anyone, you can bring Oprah to the school and people

00:11:48.840 could, I can get together and get people to make anonymous profiles and make a controversy out of

00:11:54.560 it. Like it's not, if that's the tact we're going to take, you basically can never host an event

00:11:59.780 again. You know, I think Chelsea Handler is coming to the Chan Center. It's like, what's stopping you

00:12:05.780 from a group of people from doing the same shit. So that doesn't really work. And what we're hoping 0.97

00:12:12.140 is, uh, well, we're hoping they would rescind the decision. Um, but at this point I'm down.

00:12:17.500 Yeah. So, yeah. So let's talk about, um, what you're doing next to try to get them to rescind this

00:12:22.280 decision. Um, so you've teamed up with the justice center for constitutional freedom. So they're a

00:12:27.160 Calgary based legal advocacy group, uh, full disclosure for viewers. I am a contract worker with the JCCF.

00:12:33.740 I'm their campus free speech fellow, but I'm not involved in any legal work. Um, so what is the,

00:12:38.920 the JCCF, the justice center doing for you at this point?

00:12:43.940 Well, they're officially representing us in this. What's great about them is that they do pro bono.

00:12:49.100 So they're, they're basically donations based and they know how important this battle is. And they

00:12:55.920 represent groups like myself and other groups that need help, um, with free speech issues. And they sent

00:13:02.460 a demand letter to UBC, which we haven't gotten an answer to other than the generic thing that

00:13:07.820 they're sending to the media about safety. Um, and they said, look, we're all on this. The entire

00:13:12.660 law firm is on the same page. If they don't rescind the decision, this is going to have to go to court.

00:13:18.280 We're going to have to take legal action for the sake of setting a new precedent, because a lot of

00:13:22.720 people are saying, well, why don't you just book another venue, go book the library and do it there.

00:13:27.520 Well, the issue is now that you have a public institution that has set sort of a, a social

00:13:33.160 precedent or an institutional precedent that the library could simply follow just because UBC did.

00:13:39.560 And we're going to see what happens, right? Like what we need to do now is we can't do the event

00:13:44.300 until we get a court ruling, until we get a judicial review that says, look, like you can't do that.

00:13:51.240 This is a freedom issue. It's the heckler's veto. We're fully prepared to, to take it, uh,

00:13:56.320 it's a legal action. Well, that's definitely going to be something to watch. Um, so yeah,

00:14:01.280 we'll, we'll keep our eye on this, this case with the justice center. I hope you actually get a reply,

00:14:05.680 um, to that letter and we'll see where this goes. And I hope that Andy is rescheduled eventually.

00:14:12.040 Would you have a plan to do that if, if you, uh, win this case, let's say? Oh, a hundred percent.

00:14:18.300 I think we have to do that. If we win this case, that'll be the ultimate victory, right? And I think we

00:14:23.560 will win. If you look at all the signs of how a free society works, you know, we're, we're going to win it.

00:14:30.840 It's just going to be a real headache, but you know what, if we do win, it'll set a legal precedent

00:14:35.160 across all Canadian campuses. So this could be a silver lining, um, for a big legal battle. So we'll see

00:14:42.300 what happens. I'll keep you in the loop. Great. Uh, thank you so much, Angelo. You mentioned you post

00:14:47.300 all of the free speech club talks on the YouTube channel. So I'm guessing just look up UBC free

00:14:52.340 speech club on YouTube and viewers can watch the free speech club, the free speech club.

00:14:56.740 So like in your background there. Yeah, exactly. Perfect. Right, right over there.

00:15:02.260 All right. And of course, uh, you can check us out true north at tnc.news or on the true north

00:15:07.620 YouTube channel, which is where you're watching this video right now. All right. Thanks so much,

00:15:11.540 Angelo. And bye for now. Thank you. Bye everyone.

Juno News - January 09, 2020

Andy Ngo Speech Cancelled at UBC! - Interview with Angelo Isidorou

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