UW-Madison Has Failed to Take Any Action Against Vandals Who Tried to Stop Matt Walsh Event, Organizer Claims

Matt Walsh speaks at War Memorial Plaza during the “Rally to End Child Mutilation,” in Nashville, Tenn., on Oct. 21, 2022. Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times

Eight weeks after a campaign of harassment and vandalism directed against the organizers of and participants in an event at the University of Wisconsin-Madison featuring conservative speaker and filmmaker Matt Walsh, the administration has yet to take disciplinary action against the culprits or even to express its disapproval of actions that clearly violated school policy, the head of the campus’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) has told The Epoch Times.

The harassment, intimidation, and vandalism included the removal of fliers promoting the event, the purported theft and partial eating of a Bible belonging to a student who attended the talk, and an incident afterward in which several people allegedly attempted to follow the organizers on their way home from the campus, said Harrison Wells, the chair of the YAF chapter at UW-Madison.

But the administration’s response, or lack thereof, stands in stark contrast to its efforts to make progressive and transgender students and activists feel safe and comfortable, he suggested.

“The administration is very concerned about the safety of trans students and marginalized communities, but not once did they say, ‘We’re concerned about the safety of conservative students on this campus and those who will be attending this event, and we’re working closely with the police department,’” Wells said.

Headed for Trouble

The student organization arranged for a screening of Walsh’s film “What Is a Woman?,” which takes up the issues of gender dysphoria, transsexualism, and the status of transgender people, along with a talk and Q&A featuring Walsh.

Walsh has gained national attention for his bold public stance and campaign against what he terms “child mutilation,” including a rally in downtown Nashville on Oct. 21 that drew an estimated 3,000 people.

Protestors yell at supporters of Matt Walsh and The Daily Wire’s “Rally to End Child Mutilation” Oct. 21, 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee. Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times

In the weeks leading up to the screening and talk, the decision to host Walsh and his right to speak on the UW-Madison campus quickly sparked controversy, as has been the case during the lead-up to conservative speakers’ events at other campuses in recent months, such as the University of Virginia, where anonymous vandals defaced and removed signs promoting a talk by Kellyanne Conway, former campaign manager for Donald Trump.

“The whole backlash started two to three weeks in advance when we placed some posters in the women’s studies department at UW-M because we thought people would be interested in a documentary posing the question, ‘What is a woman?’ We did that on a Friday, and the following Monday, a teaching assistant came and tore our posters down,” Wells recalled.

An article in the school’s student newspaper, the Badger-Herald, reported that the teaching assistant, identified as Jesikah Leeper, arrived at Sterling Hall on Monday, Oct. 10, and found posters promoting the Walsh event not just in a few places but covering many bulletin boards and chalkboards in the hall.

The article affirms Wells’s contention that Leeper then proceeded to tear down the posters and, by her own estimate, removed at least forty. Leeper then filed a report of a bias incident with the Dean of Students Office, characterizing the placement of posters in the hall a “targeted act of hate speech,” and demanded that the administration withdraw the permission granted to YAF to hold the Walsh event in the campus facility known as the Great Hall.

“That was the first incident of backlash, and at every point along the way, the administration was not very helpful,” Wells said.

Hooliganism

When the date of the event rolled around, leftists from the UW-Madison community turned out in force. By Wells’s estimate, 50 to 75 activists gathered outside the venue to scream and try to deny others access. A small group of counter-protestors turned out to support Walsh’s right to speak and have his film shown on the campus.

There followed one of the most serious incidents of harassment and intimidation. A local nineteen-year-old, Nick Proell, reportedly set down the Bible he had been reading and began to argue with some of the protestors, only to see pages from the book blowing around. He then saw one of the protestors swallow pages torn out of the Bible.

“They also stole our camera and equipment [including] batteries, chargers, and microphones that cost more than $1,000,” Proell told The Daily Wire.

Despite the severity of the alleged harassment and its crossing the line from intimidation into theft, the administration’s response has been lackadaisical and not at all in keeping with its readiness to take action to protect what it sees as the comfort and security of ostensibly marginalized members of the campus community, Wells believes.

“When the vandalism happened, they did not release any statement, they did not condemn the vandals. I see a lot of bias on their part. On the following days, there wasn’t really much that happened,” he said.

But for all their brazenness, the events before and during the protest do not compare with an incident Wells claims to have experienced after the event, when protestors tried to follow him home.

“I was even followed by protestors. There was a group of four or five people who tried to follow our executive members home, and we hopped in a car and drove around the block a few times. We didn’t want them knowing where we live,” Wells said.

One of the people involved in the latter incident, Wells claims, was not an undergraduate but an adult male dressed in black who may have been a member of Antifa or another radical organization.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the UW-Madison administration for comment.