University upset that liberal protesters were filmed at public event

Georgetown University officials are demanding that conservative students force an outside organization to either edit or remove a video of a public event that featured Christina Hoff Sommers speaking on campus.

The video from the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute (CBLPI), a conservative nonprofit that brought Sommers to campus, caught feminist students’ protests on camera and has more than 20,000 views on YouTube.

In an email sent to two College Republican students by Georgetown’s assistant director for the Center for Student Engagement, the school administrator said the video needed to be edited “asap” without “students who did not give permission to be taped.”

“If they are unwilling or unresponsive to the request, Georgetown will need to step in,” Lauren Gagliardi said in the email obtained by Campus Reform.

Sommers, an equity feminist from the conservative American Enterprise Institute, spoke at the private Catholic school last week to more than 100 attendees on feminism at the requests of a female student and Georgetown’s College Republicans chapter. Feminist students hung their own signs outside of the venue that labeled the event with “trigger warnings” and claimed Sommers was a “rape-denialist” and offered students’ an alternative “safe space” location.

“[I]t was clearly a public event and the camera was in plain view,” Laurel Conrad, the director of lectures for CBLPI, told Campus Reform. “It should be a shock to no one that they were on camera. As protesters, you would figure their whole mission was to get attention.”

According to an editorial written by Conrad, who called the feminist students’ actions “childish behavior towards Dr. Sommers,” multiple students took their own photos and videos during the event.

“I am surprised to hear that Georgetown University wants the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute to edit the video,” CBLPI Founder and President Michelle Easton told Campus Reform. “Once a video is uploaded to YouTube, we can’t edit it. Could it be that the University is trying to conceal the embarrassing behavior and declarations of its feminist students at our lecture? Dr. Sommers’ lecture was a public event, and the camera was in plain view. Surely the University understands that.”

Gagliardi told Campus Reform on a phone call to direct all questions to her email as she was busy with the Westboro Baptist Church’s presence on campus Monday. She did not respond to the emailed request for comment.

Georgetown did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Campus Reform.

CBLPI provides resources and offers student programs and role models to conservative women nationwide, according to the non-profit think tank’s website.

Sommers’ campus visits have been the topic of conversation not only at Georgetown, but also at Oberlin College in Ohio. Students at the liberal arts college called Sommers a misogynist and protested her event while also publicly shaming the students who invited the scholar with posters on campus.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @K_Schallhorn