This week, NYU’s chapter of the Federalist Society hosted its newly reinstated panel featuring Ilya Shapiro, a conservative author who drew scrutiny when his tweets calling Palestinians “subhuman” resurfaced. The event, slated to focus on how universities responded to protests against the war in Gaza, quickly became a controversial moment — an unsurprising turn, given the invitation of a man with a clear disdain for human rights. This highly one-sided panel, originally canceled due to “security concerns” and apprehension given the date, was reinstated after backlash from conservative groups and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, claiming that the cancellation was “censorship.”
The event’s premise centered on free speech and the marginalization of conservative viewpoints on campus. But ironically, there were five Campus Safety and two police officers holding a security checkpoint at the venue, as well as a schoolwide email stating that “disruptions to the event will not be tolerated,” and that those who violate the policy will be removed from the space and “face consequences.” This made it clear that the event was a mere performance of victimhood: bringing attention to a majority opinion while parading around it as an endangered minority.
In February, Shapiro tweeted that Palestinians are “subhuman” and should be “eradicated as a culture,” quotes that NYU’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, Students for a Democratic Society and Law Students for Justice in Palestine cited in condemnation of his event. According to Shapiro, President Linda Mills was “mortified” regarding the event’s cancellation, and promptly intervened to get things back on track. This reported mediation from Mills shows what really moves the university today — not moral conviction, but bad press.
As NYU’s administration scrambled to appease Shapiro and his supporters, his presence on campus perpetuated a deeper, more persistent myth: that conservative speakers are the ones being silenced. Figures like Ilya Shapiro, Ben Shapiro and the late Charlie Kirk all crafted brands around the idea that they are muffled because of their white male conservative viewpoints — even as they fill auditoriums, dominate headlines and command multimillion dollar empires online.
At the University of California, Berkeley, Ben Shapiro’s 2017 lecture was blocked, reinstated and ultimately required hundreds of thousands of dollars in university-funded security. Still, he calls himself a suppressed voice. Kirk’s Turning Point USA tours were known to use cancellation threats as a promotional tool — each protest becoming proof of his oppression, thus creating another viral moment for his social media empire.
The strategy has been proved effective, time and time again, and now here at NYU: invite outrage, claim censorship, trigger mass media pressure, then sit back and watch universities scramble to appear neutral. NYU’s reinstatement of the Federalist Society panel followed this exact playbook.
Regardless, while conservative voices are turning their so-called censorship into a spectacle, students at NYU and across the country are facing actual silencing. Those who organize protests in support of Gaza or racial equity are met with police presence, disciplinary warnings and vague restrictions. The irony is hard to miss: The people claiming to be silenced are the ones always guaranteed a microphone.
NYU isn’t alone. At Stanford University, after protests against Federalist Society’s Judge Kyle Duncan’s “tantrum” in 2023, the university’s apology to Duncan made national headlines. On the east coast, Columbia’s administration quickly distanced itself from student encampments, immediately punishing those participating, citing safety concerns — the same logic that NYU used to postpone Shapiro’s event before reinstating it entirely.
The so-called “diversity of viewpoint” rhetoric that the Federalist Society marketed their event with is inconsistent, considering all four panelists shared the same ideological framework. Justices, think tank fellows and FIRE representatives discussed “why free speech is central to the Western tradition” yet not a single pro-Palestinian student, scholar, dissenting faculty or community member was invited to speak.
The imbalance is stark. Claiming viewpoint diversity yet handing the microphone only to those who one agrees with is not a form of open debate. In the end, the Federalist Society’s talk did not challenge any boundaries of public discourse. The true silencing of voices comes from the students whose outrage might not be trending, whose safety concerns don’t reach Mills’ inbox and whose opinions don’t come with a security escort.
WSN’s Opinion section strives to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented in the Opinion section are solely the views of the writer.
Contact Annika Wilewicz at [email protected].