benedek/Getty Images Several pro-Palestinian student protesters at the University of Kentucky (UK) disrupted a speech given by Ian Haworth, a British Jewish conservative pundit, on Feb. 27 that included chants of anti-Israel slogans. The fire alarm was also pulled.
Haworth, who hosts a podcast on YouTube called “Off Limits” and whose work has appeared in publications including The Washington Examiner, New York Post and Newsweek, was brought to the campus by the school’s Turning Point USA chapter to discuss Hamas, the Oct. 7 massacre and the explosion of antisemitism worldwide following the massacre. Haworth told the Journal in a phone interview that the disruption occurred toward the beginning of his speech, as he started quoting from the Hamas charter after describing the atrocities of Oct. 7.
“These people started shouting over me,” Haworth said. “At first they were saying, who’s paying me … that I’m lying, this is all Zionist propaganda, that I support genocide, what about the 30,000 Palestinians killed … I tried once or twice to say, ‘Hey, look, thank you for coming, I’m going to show you the respect of sticking around and answering any questions you may have. Don’t interrupt me, this is a public university, I’ve been invited to speak. The heckler’s veto is not freedom of speech.” After Haworth said this, the protesters became “really riled up” and shouted him down, and acted “quite threatening to me and everyone else in the room,” Haworth said. The police escorted everyone out of the event and only allowed those with tickets back inside.
Katie Jefferson, who heads the university’s TPUSA chapter, told the Kentucky Kernel student newspaper, “It was agreed between me and the officer that we were going to continue the event but only for people that had signed up with tickets because we had a ticketing system. That’s not really what they (the officers) did. The officers kind of said ‘It’s canceled,’ and then they brought us back in, that’s not what I thought they were going to say.”
The protesters remained outside and chanted, “resistance is justified when people are occupied” and “Haworth Haworth you can’t hide we charge you with genocide.” Haworth was able to finish his lecture, but as the Q&A session was coming to a close, the fire alarm went off.
“The police told us not to evacuate because they were all waiting for us outside the door; they were obviously trying to get everybody out in the open,” Haworth said. The police secured the building then armed officers safely escorted Haworth and the audience out of the building into the parking structure. “All these people were waiting at the bottom of the parking garage,” continued Haworth. “Some of them followed us to the parking garage … and then they were all waiting at the front screaming and shouting at anyone who left.”
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❗️❗️Pro-Palestinian Protestors interrupt a @TPUSA event w/ @ighaworth while speaking on Israel at @universityofky
In an attempt to hinder our @TpusaStudents free speech they attempt to barge through the doors and then pull the fire alarm 🚨🚨🚨 pic.twitter.com/GdlOH5Ve9A
— Maggie fuchs (@maggiefuchs9) February 28, 2024
The TPUSA chapter posted a statement to social media that “protesters showed up unannounced without tickets” and “immediately began loudly interrupting, screaming, chanting, vandalizing our property with red paint and insulting our speaker.” Haworth suggested on “several” occasions that the protesters could air their thoughts during the Q&A session, the TPUSA statement said; the chapter added that “there was a verbal warning” that continued disruptions would result in police removing them. “For the next hour, the protesters proceeded to scream, chant, and bang on the door, then pulled the fire alarm in the building,” the TPUSA statement said, adding that attendees exiting the building were harassed and followed by “the mob of protesters.”
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Jefferson told the Kernel that the police believe one of the protesters pulled the fire alarm but they didn’t know the identity of the individual.
The Lexington 4 Palestine (Lex4Palestine) group posted a statement to social media saying that “students let [Haworth] know that Zionism and bigotry are not welcome on UK’s campus” and then claimed that the university police “discriminated against students multiple times and lied, telling them that the event was canceled when it was continuing behind closed doors. Students who came after the so-called cancellation were denied entry, simply for being visibly Arab and/or Muslim.” They also alleged that “students were told to evacuate, or they would be taken out in handcuffs” once the fire alarm went off; looking through the building’s windows, they could see the event attendees doing a “photoshoot” before being escorted out by police.
“UKPD’s multiple threats to arrest students for ‘trespassing’ on their own campus, which is a public institution and a site of protected speech, is abhorrent and dangerous,” the Lex4Palestine statement added. “At a time where college students are vulnerable to targeting and hate crimes, the police’s actions were inexcusable. It is unacceptable that a UK organization can host such an event propagating and uplifting genocidal hate speech on our campus.”
Sajida Megariaf, a student at the university who was ordered by police to leave the event or else get arrested for trespassing, told the Kernel that even though the protesters were told the event had been canceled, the event was still ongoing. “Anybody who was visibly brown was not allowed inside,” she said. “The only people in the auditorium that were allowed in and continued to be in the auditorium were white.” She is also quoted in the Kernel as saying: “They had lied to us, profiled us, not allowed us back in and we’re standing there and we’re just like, ‘What is going on?’ And then the fire alarm goes off. Officers were like ‘Everybody needs to evacuate. If you do not evacuate, you’ll be evacuated in cuffs,’ and we were like, ‘Nobody’s resisting to evacuate, but are the people inside going to be evacuated as well?’”
“Amazing how they play victim the second they’ve tried to shut an event down,” Haworth told the Journal. “It’s wild.”
University spokesperson Jay Blanton told the Journal, “Shortly after the event began, students began protesting inside of the hall where the event was taking place. The student organizer of the event read a prepared script, which stated that if any disruptions continued, they would be asked to leave by UKPD. This is standard protocol of any event taking place on campus. After this statement was read, disruptions continued, and after several warnings, the UKPD lieutenant on the scene, per our protocols, temporarily stopped the event and asked all participants the room. Only ticketholders were allowed back inside as the event resumed.” As the event was winding down, “an unknown subject was let into the back of the building by another unknown subject where they proceeded to pull a fire alarm. The building was subsequently evacuated by UKPD in a manner that would keep the two groups separate from each other in the interest of safety.”
No injuries or arrests were made, and the university is investigating the matter.
Haworth told the Journal that it’s not the first time one of his speeches has been disrupted protesters, nor was it the worst (he recalled worse instances when he gave speeches on abortion and free speech at other campuses), but it was “by far the worst” instance of a disruption when speaking about an Israel-related topic.
“People need to realize, this is happening on average, small campuses all over the country,” Haworth said. “Harvard gets all the attention, but there are colleges all over the country where it’s just not safe to be Jewish anymore. I get to go home; these students have to live with these monsters. It breaks my heart. It’s a terrifying time to live in for these students.”
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