By Matt Holdridge
This via Young Americans for Liberty
To continue to help raise awareness and to bring Tom Woods to Indiana University, a press release has gone out on behalf of IU’s YAL chapter.
Below is the text of the release; please share it with any bloggers or members of the media who might bring attention to this situation.
PRESS RELEASE: INDIANA UNIVERSITY REFUSES EQUAL FUNDING FOR FREE MARKET SPEAKER
ARLINGTON, VA — The Economics Department and Indiana Memorial Union Board Lectures Committee of Indiana University-Bloomington refused to host Mises Institute senior scholar and economist Dr. Thomas E. Woods, Jr. on campus, citing the blatantly false excuse that Woods, a graduate of Harvard and Columbia and a New York Times bestselling author, lacked “sufficient academic credibility.”
The Young Americans for Liberty chapter whose request to host Woods was denied is fighting back against this gross academic bias and power play with the assistance of CampusReform.org, a website for conservative and libertarian student activists, and the national Young Americans for Liberty organization.
Sam Spaiser, president of the IU Young Americans for Liberty group, has taken swift action to bring Woods to IU with or without the school’s assistance. “It is clear that the Lectures Board rejected Woods based on philosophical differences, not his lack of credibility,” he said. “This is a ridiculous decision based on false pretenses and amounts to nothing more than ideological injustice.”
Woods agreed in a statement given to CampusReform.org. “If my academic credentials are in question, anyone can judge for themselves at TomWoods.com. But from their point of view I’m surely uncredentialed: unlike other speakers they might consider, I haven’t wrecked any economies.”
IU previously spent $35,000 to bring to campus John Edwards, a disgraced liberal politician best known for long denying an extramarital affair and illegitimate daughter, but refused Woods a speaking opportunity despite his more reasonable speaker’s fee of $4,000.
The story was first reported by The Indiana Standard, an independent conservative student newspaper, and published online at CampusReform.org.
The IU Memorial Union Board Lectures Committee chairwoman declined to comment, and said she did not know the committee’s budget or its full list of past speakers.
Young Americans for Liberty seeks to recruit, train, educate, and mobilize students on the ideals of liberty and the Constitution. Visit www.yaliberty.org for more information. Email Sam Spaiser at [email protected] to donate to bring Woods to IU.
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If you would like to see Tom Woods live yourself, he will be speaking at C4L’s CPAC event on February 18 in Washington, DC.
We hope that you can make it to CPAC and help spread the word of IU YAL’s battle to bring free-market thinking to their classmates.