University Park, PA (WJAC) — A speaker who some find controversial is claiming officials at Penn State University tried to "cancel” her event on campus.
Riley Gaines, who's garnered national attention for her stance on trans-athletes, gave a speech Tuesday about what she labeled as "Real Women's Day."
Gaines spoke on the HUB lawn early Tuesday evening and was met with backlash from counter protestors who did their best to drown out her message.
Gaines is a former swimmer at the University of Kentucky. She now gives speeches against transgender people competing in women’s sports. She explained why she specifically wants to talk to college students about this issue.
“I see the direction that colleges are going and it’s pretty chilling, even just now, there was an email sent out by a professor here saying, ‘we know Riley Gaines is coming here, we know how awful she is,’ it got sent to their entire student body, it’s ridiculous.”
She claims that the university canceled her event, but Penn State denied that claim in a statement they put out on Tuesday.
They said that the groups that wanted to bring her to campus did not meet the deadlines for scheduling an event.
We attempted to speak with Penn State’s senior vice president Michael Wade Smith about her claims, but he declined an on-camera interview.
President Neeli Bendapudi has said that every person has the right to express their beliefs since it is a public university.
Gaines described her comments as comical considering what she had to go through and said that if she was a Penn State alumnus, she would send her degree back.
“This is where you’re supposed to have civil discourse and you’re supposed to be able to openly ask questions and have this dialogue but that is being shut down immediately, as we’ve seen here at Penn State.”
She ended up speaking on the outside lawn instead of inside the student center.
Gaines took questions from the audience during her speech, which was about twenty minutes long, although the crowd made it hard to hear.
Two counter protestors were detained and arrested after they flipped over one of the tables set up by the organizers of the event.
One of the organizers was the Young Americans for Freedom, who says that everyone deserves the right to speak their mind.
“Our founding beliefs were that you should have open debates, open forums, open discussions and we believe that is one of the best ways to learn and get ideas done.”
Gaines has more speeches scheduled in and around the country at different college campuses in the coming months.
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