University student talks free speech on campus
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
194.32166
Summary
Free speech on Canadian university campuses may be a cynical topic for most, but really, should it be? I sat down with Michael Harris, a student at the University of Calgary and the Director of Every Citizen's A King Society, a free speech student-run club, who also ran in the Battle River-Crowfoot by-election this past August. He tells me why people shouldn't be so cynical about free speech on campus.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Free speech on Canadian university campuses may be a cynical topic for most, but really,
00:00:06.640
should it be? Hello, my name is Leah Mushin, I'm a reporter here at The Western Standard,
00:00:11.440
and I sat down with Michael Harris, a student at University of Calgary and the director of
00:00:16.560
Every Citizen's A King Society, a free speech student-run club, who also ran in the Battle
00:00:23.440
River Crowfoot by-election this past August. He tells me why people shouldn't be so cynical about
00:00:30.400
free speech on campus. And so, like, why do you think this is such an important issue for students
00:00:36.400
to get involved about? And also, why do you think it's important for, especially Canada, to be
00:00:42.560
involved? Well, first, number one, I don't just run the Every Citizen A King Society. There has been a
00:00:50.480
big problem as of late on campus where people feel like they're not being heard or they're being
00:00:55.280
censored by our staff or by other clubs on campus. And so, originally, back in 2023, there were barely
00:01:03.440
any groups that actually championed the idea of freedom of speech on our campus. We had a couple
00:01:08.240
of groups. We had a group like Generation Screwed, which is a youth group allied with the Taxpayer
00:01:13.440
Federation. There was a small contingent of Students for Liberty that were on our campus,
00:01:17.920
campus. And there were a couple of free speech organizations that never really went off the
00:01:21.840
table. I saw that there was something that needed to be done. There needed someone to be ahead to
00:01:27.840
organize a lot of this stuff. And I decided, why not just not only make my own organization that I
00:01:33.520
could run more directly, but also work in tandem with these different groups. And so, we have
00:01:38.160
something called the Liberty Pact, as I like to call it, where we have all these groups that were
00:01:43.760
existing on campus together. And like I said, Generation Screwed, Students for Liberty, and now
00:01:47.600
my organization, the Every Citizen King Society, working in tandem to push freedom of speech. Now,
00:01:53.920
why, of course, we have wanted to do this is because of the fact that campus has not been nice
00:02:00.640
to the political culture. Unfortunately, as a previous student yourself, you might have seen this,
00:02:06.160
where if you're in a group where a professor doesn't agree with what you're saying, if another club
00:02:12.400
says something that you don't agree with, they don't, sorry, excuse me, if they don't agree with,
00:02:17.600
or if, you know, even a random person doesn't agree with, it's built on a base of hostility,
00:02:24.000
not of tolerance or wanting to work together or hear another person's opinion out. It's the
00:02:29.920
classic idea of sports teams, you know, there's my person, and then there's your person. And if
00:02:36.000
we're not on the same team, I'm going to hate you. And I didn't like that, because I believe that
00:02:40.800
brings us more to extremism, the issues that we dealt with in the 1930s, where we saw each other
00:02:46.160
as enemies and not as friends or people that we can work together to build a better future.
00:02:51.600
And so the general idea of the Every Citizen King Society is to bring every person, every group of
00:02:58.880
people together to talk about the issues of the day, to have open mic events, and so people can
00:03:03.680
actually hear the other side without getting hostile with each other. And I would say over the
00:03:08.080
last two or three years that we've been around, we've been decently successful in this regard.
00:03:11.760
You know, we haven't had any fights at any of our pub nights yet. But the general idea,
00:03:16.080
we bring people together to a pub, we give you some free food, some free dinner, so people are
00:03:21.120
relaxed, people are more chill, it's a friendly, more friendly environment, and have an open mic event
00:03:25.600
where everybody gets an equal time going around and speaking. Sometimes we've had the,
00:03:31.360
sometimes we've had the pleasure to host debates. We've had all three UFC political clubs to come
00:03:37.360
together and actually have a debate night, which is rare, considering that has never actually
00:03:42.160
happened at the university campus before. So it is a big deal. And it's also one of the, one of the
00:03:47.280
reasons why I'm actually a pretty big fan of Charlie Kirk, because what he was doing and, you know,
00:03:53.280
going to campuses and having open mic events like he was doing is what we are trying to accomplish
00:03:57.760
here in Alberta. We've been pretty successful that we've actually been able to push outside of the
00:04:02.800
University of Calgary campus now where we have around 17 chapters across Canada, predominantly
00:04:08.960
here in Alberta, obviously. So SAIT, MRU, UFC are our three biggest universities, but we're also in
00:04:14.560
Simon Fraser University, UVic, VIU, and also in Waterloo. So those are our biggest groups. And we're
00:04:22.080
going to keep pushing for the next couple of years, hopefully, to balance out this now shifting away from,
00:04:29.200
you know, positive, you know, tolerance of each other and less of the, the violence that seems
00:04:35.520
like a lot of people are talking about these days. Wow. That's cool. Like, I was going to also ask you
00:04:42.000
on that point, since you said you had, sorry, how many chapters did you say you have now? 17 at this
00:04:46.400
current moment. Okay. So like, how did that happen? Like, was this a recent expansion or has this been
00:04:53.440
drawn out for like, quite a few years? Like, yeah. It's been drawn out for the last three years.
00:04:59.840
There's been a lot of changes over the last three years. Most of the time, it's just working in tandem
00:05:04.960
with other libertarian based organizations. Like if Students for Liberty, as an example, has a chapter
00:05:10.400
in a university, I'm going to know the person, I'm going to work with them very directly.
00:05:15.840
A lot of those people are my friends, they see what I'm doing here on campus, and they want to emulate
00:05:19.760
that success on their own campus. And so they make their own chapter. That's usually how it goes.
00:05:23.920
And so the expansion comes as either people that are in my organization know people,
00:05:28.880
or if I know people, it keeps going from there. I've actually been very lucky recently, ever since
00:05:35.120
the end of my election in Bell River Crowfoot, that I'm actually finally getting people who reach
00:05:39.680
out to me instead of the other way around, which has obviously helped us expand and go farther
00:05:46.400
across Canada than had we had before where I had to, you know, bug or ask people to get on it,
00:05:51.840
Hmm. Wow, that's cool. Okay, well, my next question would definitely be about the Battle
00:05:58.480
River Crowfoot since we were running. That's, that's pretty like, I think that's pretty impressive for
00:06:03.760
a student to, because you're still a student there, right?
00:06:05.680
Yes. Unfortunately, I'll probably be stuck here for the next five years knowing me.
00:06:09.840
Okay, well, but like, that's still pretty impressive. And so relating back to like freedom
00:06:17.280
of speech, I feel like I definitely think lots of students, even if they would think of doing
00:06:24.000
something like what you did, which is run, maybe they would be afraid to do so because of the fact
00:06:29.760
that if they were to express their honest views, maybe they wouldn't be very supported by, say,
00:06:35.200
like their classmates and stuff like that. So why do you think it's very important to like,
00:06:43.200
I don't know, for like students to just like express their own opinions and like, I don't know,
00:06:48.240
have enough courage to do things that they actually want to do even outside of the
00:06:57.120
I mean, I've always had the opinion that if someone doesn't step up to do something,
00:07:01.760
something's not going to get done. If you don't see someone doing something, be that person and go
00:07:07.120
and do it. I've seen so many times where, you know, people like to say they want to see a change in
00:07:12.000
something and they don't actually want to put any effort to actually go in and change some things.
00:07:16.880
I'm not going to lie. It's going to be a hard uphill battle because we do have a lot of toxicity in
00:07:21.760
politics. I've even myself, when I ran this election and when I've been doing the stuff on campus,
00:07:28.000
you're going to get people that are going to be disagreeing with you. And because of that climate,
00:07:31.760
that like, like I said, the toxic climate around politics right now, you're going to get people
00:07:35.840
throwing death threats at you. You're going to have people threatening your life. I have to deal
00:07:39.440
with groups like these communist groups on my campus, that this is a daily occurrence where
00:07:43.920
people get harassed. And so you have to have somewhat of a be strong willed in politics to be
00:07:49.280
able to handle it. I'm not saying that that's what it should be, because it shouldn't be like this
00:07:53.200
at all. We should be able to be tolerant of each other. We should be able to work together. And that's
00:07:57.360
one of the reasons why I wanted to run the election. I hoped at the very end of the day,
00:08:01.280
I knew I wasn't going to win. It was a very strong election for Pierre Polyev,
00:08:05.360
but I wanted to inspire number one, to inspire people that you can, you do have a voice,
00:08:10.720
go out there and speak. If you have the ability to work, put in the effort and actually speak to your
00:08:16.160
neighbors and push towards what you actually want to see, you can achieve it. There's no one stopping
00:08:21.760
you other than yourself, pushing yourself away from it. And at the end of the day,
00:08:27.120
you shouldn't let these people push you around and say, you can't do this because at the end of
00:08:32.800
the day, it's because, well, especially with these communist groups, they're just afraid
00:08:36.480
of opposition. They don't want you to succeed because they don't want what you want to see happen
00:08:41.600
to happen. And so really you got to really fight for what you truly care about at the end of the day,
00:08:47.360
whether it be your local community running an election and making sure their voices are heard,
00:08:52.000
or working in a club and talking to your fellow students, or just simply having a conversation
00:08:58.000
with your friends. You shouldn't have to be afraid. And it comes with a lot of courage,
00:09:02.080
unfortunately. And I'm hoping society can be a little bit better over the next couple of years
00:09:06.160
here, because if it keeps going in this current rate where we're seeing right now, we're in for a
00:09:11.040
hard time if we can't tolerate each other. Well, also on that note, because you were talking
00:09:17.680
about the communist thing, and I know you did talk to my colleague Jeremy about this as well.
00:09:22.960
But I'm kind of interested on that too, because at least from last year, I don't remember it being
00:09:31.200
that bad. I don't know, maybe I was living under a rock or something.
00:09:35.520
But, but this year, so like, yeah, since you did already elaborate on it, I was also,
00:09:43.120
I don't know if this is true or not, because it's like a Reddit thread that I, I didn't see,
00:09:48.160
but my friend saw and he told me about it. And he was saying that like, it's also a,
00:09:54.240
what's it called, a pyramid scheme? Is it like, do you know anything about that? Or?
00:09:57.760
Well, I always made a joke that the pro-capitalist organization on campus does everything for
00:10:04.320
free. We give out food for free. We give out our merch for free. We give out our books for free,
00:10:08.800
which is like, you know, the communist way of doing things because we want to support like a
00:10:12.400
collective identity. Well, the communists on our campus have a tendency to sell everything.
00:10:17.760
If you want booze or food at an event, well, they'll get it for you, but you have to pay in
00:10:24.160
to go to their events. If you want a book, you have to pay for it. If you have a newspaper,
00:10:28.640
you have to pay for it. Pretty much be prepared to be a capitalist at a communist event if you want to get
00:10:33.280
anything done. And I always found that really funny. I don't know the inner workings on whether
00:10:38.160
or not they have like a pay as you go system. Once you become a member, there's a couple of
00:10:42.480
clubs that are like that, unfortunately on our campus, even the U of C conservatives, or I guess
00:10:47.360
the, I guess Calgary conservatives now and then they merge with MRU. They also do that to be able to
00:10:53.680
run in elections and to vote. You also have to pay into it. I'm assuming the communists are probably
00:10:58.480
the same way. Cause they, they gatekeep a lot of their staff stuff, unfortunately.
00:11:04.160
Okay. Interesting. Um, okay. It's just cause I'm curious as well. Did they like, so what happened?
00:11:13.760
They specifically like, uh, targeted you or something like that? Like the communist group or like,
00:11:20.240
yeah. Well, the communist group has had a long tendency of being, uh, like I say, grifters a lot.
00:11:28.080
They do, they're kind of like, uh, what Thomas was doing in our election. A lot of what they do
00:11:33.280
is they do for attention. They know they're a little bit of a smaller group and they want to
00:11:37.520
inflate themselves to make themselves bigger. And they do this by, I would say, harassing their
00:11:42.560
competition. So it's not just me. I've had a couple of clubs that have also been harassed,
00:11:46.560
but me specifically, they believe that, uh, me and my group are fascists because we are
00:11:51.680
capitalists or pro capitalists. And so I've had some members of my organization had people DM them
00:11:57.280
privately saying that they were going to get their teeth kicked in. I've had some people, well,
00:12:01.440
actually I was, I was, well, it was actually me as well too, but I've also had our posters and some
00:12:06.640
of our events be vandalized. Uh, that's the very big thing where we've had their stickers and their,
00:12:12.160
their memorabilia cover up our stuff when we're trying to do something. So if we have a
00:12:16.160
poster up as an example, or we have a banner up, uh, it can get destroyed or get damaged.
00:12:22.320
Uh, as of recently, uh, in April of this year, we had one of their members come up to our table
00:12:28.640
and steal stuff off the table. I mean, we give out stuff for free. So, I mean, we would have loved to
00:12:33.440
give it to him, but when you have someone just randomly come up to your table, doesn't say anything,
00:12:39.600
grabs as much stuff as he can in his arms and runs away, you know, that it seems like it's a ride.
00:12:44.960
It's an attack, you know, it's not actually, you're not interested in what you actually took
00:12:48.720
from me. You're just attacking me. And unfortunately, this is our campus culture,
00:12:53.280
unfortunately. And it's not just the, uh, the communists I've been doing this. We also have,
00:12:57.920
unfortunately, a underground fascist clubs that actually do exist on our campus that peddle stuff
00:13:03.280
like eugenics. And they also are against a lot of people on our campus and they are also harassing
00:13:09.120
people as well. And that has become the campus culture. Unfortunately, some people don't see it because
00:13:14.560
they're not in the political realm or don't engage with these people on a daily basis.
00:13:18.480
But as someone who is, and as someone who's clearly been the victim of being targeted by
00:13:22.560
these people, I almost see this as a daily occurrence. And I see my, my peers and my
00:13:27.440
colleagues that have also been harassed by many of these people in the, in these groups. I don't
00:13:31.840
know if this is a club sponsored thing that they're doing, or if it's the, the erratic nature of their
00:13:37.360
members. But I know these, the people that show up to these events, the people that help out
00:13:41.360
with these people are the ones committing these crimes. And as of recently, their members have
00:13:46.800
also been caught doing a nor, uh, a number of illegal things on campus. As of recently,
00:13:51.600
there was a lady who got charged for trespassing after hours, their club then got in and started
00:13:57.840
harassing their phone lines, the staff home, uh, like phone lines to get them to reverse that order.
00:14:03.760
And they did. Unfortunately, the university reversed the criminal charges on the people who broke into the
00:14:09.440
university. And so this has become an issue now where are we allowing authoritarians to commit
00:14:16.320
crimes as long as they have enough pressure to give to staff. That's what we're worried about.
00:14:21.760
And how long until, well, it gets pushed further and further, like how, how, how, how far are they
00:14:27.760
going to push this guys where it goes from a simple trespassing, uh, you know, issue and into like,
00:14:34.000
I don't know, complete vandalism. Like if they come in and destroy school property is an example,
00:14:39.040
how far are they going to push it? And that's what we got where that's what we're worried about
00:14:42.000
currently. Hmm. Wow. I didn't even know like eugenics club. What? So there is a club that has
00:14:51.280
existed for the last four years called the European heritage club on our campus. You know, it sounds
00:14:56.880
innocent enough, you know, they're just wanting to support like European heritage. However, it's,
00:15:01.520
I can only describe it as a group of, uh, discord redditors, the best way that I can possibly describe it
00:15:08.160
that, um, they think they're funny by supporting people like nickfruenzas and stuff like that. And
00:15:13.680
they think they're like, I don't know, based or whatever, what the words they use, but, uh,
00:15:17.440
usually they use it as an excuse to harass, uh, students on campus. They use it to harass, uh,
00:15:22.800
the Jewish students on campus. And they also make a couple of newsletters that they like to post on
00:15:28.640
people's papers on their, like on their bulletin board, uh, in specific, like specifically targeting
00:15:34.640
people as an example, saying, I don't know, they, they publish stuff all the time. That's like, um,
00:15:41.600
I have to get it. I've had, I've, I have stuff saved in our office, but, uh, like posters,
00:15:46.320
they put posters on top of each other explaining why, like, don't join this group because they're
00:15:51.200
inferior or some things. So there's some crazy stuff going on our campus, unfortunately. And I've tried my
00:15:57.040
best, uh, cause like we run anti-authoritarian campaigns on, on campus to try to expose what they're
00:16:02.400
doing, bring it to light because people don't know about what's happening. And then hopefully
00:16:07.440
we can get the SU, which unfortunately controls a lot of stuff, our student union to hopefully
00:16:12.880
get these guys at the bare minimum, not only banned, but hopefully to stop them from being allowed to be
00:16:18.160
part of our political campus culture, because they're allowed to table first to number one,
00:16:22.640
they're allowed to use the facilities like other clubs. They're also allowed to book rooms and are
00:16:27.840
allowed to use the school facilities, unfortunately, to peddle their message
00:16:32.000
and considering their messages, both the communists and the fascists on our campus are
00:16:35.680
promoting violence, whether it be the RCP promoting a violent revolution or the fascists are actively
00:16:42.480
harassing students because of the color of their skin. We need to put an end to this and I'm going
00:16:48.640
to do this by any means necessary, whether it be harassing the SU to get stuff done, or we're hoping
00:16:54.400
we can push, uh, some people and some candidates next year in the SU election that they can actually get
00:16:59.040
some stuff done. Okay. Interesting. Well, um, I also wanted to ask you because related to this,
00:17:08.160
I did an article. It was about a report by the Fraser Institute who like surveyed university
00:17:16.240
students in Canada, basically. And it was talking about how, like, so say you're a right leaning
00:17:22.960
student according to their definition, which they give. They said, like, 74% of right leaning students
00:17:29.920
were afraid to, like, express their views in class because they were afraid of, like, getting a lower
00:17:34.560
grade, while 53% of left leaning students said, like, similarly. So, like, do you think, like,
00:17:41.840
this is, like, also maybe one of the reasons you also started the club, like, because it seems like even
00:17:48.160
in your own classes, if you don't say the right opinion, you're gonna get, like, a lower grade and
00:17:52.800
stuff. And so, yeah, have you experienced it also yourself? Like, have you seen, like, say,
00:17:58.720
some of your classmates have to do that? Or your, you also? So, I will say a lot of these professors,
00:18:06.080
at the end of the day, they are, there's gonna be a lot of professors that are obviously gonna be biased.
00:18:10.560
There's gonna be a lot of professors that are gonna have their own opinions. Though I will say,
00:18:14.240
they are good in this angle, even if they do do what you describe, you have to be prepared to
00:18:20.320
defend your argument. There's obviously gonna be some professors that are gonna be biased either
00:18:24.480
left or right leaning that are going to probably give you a worse remark because that's not what
00:18:29.600
they were taught or that's not what they teach. But most of the time I've found that the teachers
00:18:34.800
that are like that, usually they'll give you a better mark if you're willing to actually express
00:18:40.640
your opinion properly. And that might sound good. I mean, to someone like me where, I mean,
00:18:45.520
I talk a lot, so I get my opinion across pretty well. If you just write a regular paper, yeah,
00:18:51.760
you might actually suffer because of your opinion sometimes. And this goes both ways. I don't know
00:18:56.880
if I'm allowed to name drop some professors, but specifically against left wing students,
00:19:01.680
Ian Brody is also a professor that does that on our campus. I love the man, I respect him quite a bit.
00:19:07.200
However, he is argumentative. If you have an opinion that he disagrees with,
00:19:11.280
he will fight you to the end of your days unless you can actually argument or like create your
00:19:16.800
argument properly. And if you don't, your grades are going to suffer for that. And I think that's
00:19:21.120
pretty much the attitude of most professors at the University of Calgary. If you are coming in
00:19:25.280
with a differing opinion, you better be prepared to defend it. And if you're not prepared to defend it,
00:19:30.000
don't say it at all. That's the policy of the University of Calgary from what I've experienced.
00:19:34.000
Okay. That's a good, I feel like, yeah, I feel like I think I experienced the same. Like,
00:19:40.240
for example, I don't know what his name was, but he taught political philosophy. I don't know if you
00:19:49.520
would know, but yes, Goldstein. Yes. I love Goldstein, but he's also very opinionated.
00:19:55.520
He is, but I heard that he like, he would like it when you would say something that maybe is not
00:20:01.120
what he would think, as long as you're able to defend what you're saying. So I, yeah. No,
00:20:07.200
and also I think it's a good way to like, at least be able to, I don't know, defend your own opinions,
00:20:14.640
like be able to like articulate yourself properly. So I like your view because it's not super pessimistic.
00:20:21.680
And I definitely think there's still value in like learning university. Yeah.
00:20:28.400
I've seen the worst of it though. I think the suppression of students' opinions comes outside
00:20:32.800
of the classroom because I think they're forced, unfortunately, or fortunately in this case,
00:20:38.080
be more cordial while they're in the classroom as a professor. However, students have noted that
00:20:44.400
outside of the classroom, they can have their opinions suppressed. What does that mean?
00:20:48.160
Student support for events or for students' voices. I mean, I don't know how political you
00:20:53.360
want to get here today, but Israel, Palestine is a very heated political topic on our campus right now.
00:21:01.360
And both sides, unfortunately have been the victim of student suppression on our campus,
00:21:06.000
where if they want to talk about what, you know, is facing their families or their communities,
00:21:10.640
they're going to find out that they're going to be getting harassed or suppressed,
00:21:13.840
or they're not going to be allowed to talk about their issues. And it's actually become
00:21:16.640
such an issue that Jewish students on our campus don't even feel comfortable talking
00:21:22.480
about their own faith or saying that they are Jewish because they think that they're going to
00:21:25.920
get attacked because of the surge of anti-Zionism on our campus. And it can go both ways as well,
00:21:33.840
too. There are some people that are foreign exchange students from Palestine and supposedly
00:21:38.400
from Gaza as well that are on our campus. And they feel that they are also being suppressed,
00:21:42.560
where their protests have been shut down by our school staff and their events have not allowed to
00:21:48.480
go through. And so that's why I say I'm non-pessimistic or at least a neutral view of it,
00:21:53.120
because I can see both sides and I can see that, well, maybe in a classroom, there might be not
00:21:58.320
suppression as long as you're willing to defend your argument. But if you're willing to defend your
00:22:02.880
argument outside of the classroom, well, you're not even allowed to speak your opinion. And that's
00:22:07.520
actively causing harm to the actual student culture because we're viewing each other as enemies rather
00:22:13.280
than actually allowing each other to speak to each other that hopefully maybe could calm things down
00:22:18.240
a little bit. And that that's a that's a big issue because I don't see any professors willing to actually
00:22:24.240
change that. Unfortunately. Mm hmm. I when I was like thinking back on like, yeah, I definitely think it's more
00:22:33.200
outside of the classroom. But I'm also thinking, do you think at all has to do with like, since like,
00:22:39.520
obviously, most university students are going to be younger, they're mostly young adults, late teens,
00:22:45.120
early 20s, maybe has something to do with like the social aspect, like you want to be part of a group.
00:22:51.200
And so maybe it's like, it's more tribal in a way. Yeah.
00:23:00.080
I mean, I mean, I honestly, some days I find the opposite. I swear half the students don't
00:23:04.880
actually want to do things nowadays. They just come for the class and then leave, unfortunately.
00:23:09.120
So I will always argue that we have a dead campus culture, unfortunately.
00:23:13.840
Hasn't it always been that way, though? I wonder.
00:23:15.760
Yes, it's it's it's it's it's never been good, unfortunately. I mean, it's always good in the
00:23:21.040
And it's that's yeah. Oh, yeah. 100%. And then everyone just fizzles out.
00:23:25.280
Yeah. Mm hmm. Well, thank you again for coming on. And yeah, I'll