Seth Dillon, CEO of the Babylon Bee, spoke to an audience of about 80 attendants in the multipurpose space of John England Jr. Hall on Wednesday. He was invited by UA Young Americans for Freedom.
Days prior to the event, the student-led conservative political group passed out fliers to advertise the event that read “Free Speech is Under Attack!”
UA YAF has claimed that the University and students have abridged its freedom of speech, citing that students have used water to erase their chalked messages related to topics such as abortion and transgender people.
Trenton Buffenbarger, president of YAF, said that people have torn down YAF posters and yelled at members for expressing certain viewpoints.
“I can think of no one better than Seth Dillon to speak on this topic,” Buffenbarger said. “The Babylon Bee has been de-platformed and censored throughout the years on many social media platforms. Seth has been on the front lines of our fight to say what we believe.”
Babylon Bee is a conservative Christian media organization that produces satirical content about politics, religion and current events.
In March 2023, Dillon spoke in front of a Congressional committee to testify against private social media companies, such as X, for revoking access to the Babylon Bee account for “hateful conduct” after it posted a satirical headline aimed against Rachel Levine, a transgender woman and government official.
The Babylon Bee is currently engaged in a legal battle against California Gov. Gavin Newsom for passing state laws overtly cracking down on AI-generated content and covertly requiring parody and satire to clearly label itself.
“Free speech is constantly under attack, because it is a threat to those who are in power,” Dillon said, describing certain people as “tyrants,” later defined as “anyone opposed to free speech and is in a position of power to do something to enforce their ideology on others.”
He argued that speech was the weapon to use in combat against “radical gender ideology,” diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory, which he said are being imposed upon the group and other conservatives from the top down.
Last Thursday, UA students organized a protest showing disapproval of the University exempting UA YAF from a mandatory rule to include a nondiscrimination clause in its constitution, allowing the organization to use an alternate version of the statement that does not mention gender identity, gender expression or sexual identity. The clause was required for all student organizations to be registered with The Source.
“At least we do have the truth on our side, and that makes it easy to actually win the debate when you can have the debate,” Dillon said.
Dillon also warned against the threat of censorship, of which there are two kinds: hard and soft censorship.
“Much more problematic than hard censorship, where they’re actually doing the work of taking down your content, is the soft censorship that occurs when people fear some kind of consequence for speaking their mind,” Dillon said. “In that way, the tyrants trick us into doing their work for them.”
Joseph Angelillo, an instructor of legal and constitutional history in the University’s Department of History, affirmed the importance of free speech and debate, but he said it through a more positive and collaborative lens, rather than saying people were at war in the fight for their ideals.
“It’s like the cliche that iron sharpens iron,” he said. “You can’t come up with good solutions to complicated ideas unless we can be free and open with each other and criticize each other’s ideas. By accommodating our own ideas into others, we come up with better ideas.”
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