Police were called to Moore Hall on Thursday night after a
student group event was interrupted by protests.
Protestors entered an event hosted by L.O.G.I.C., a campus
organization devoted to pursuing the ideas of Ayn Rand, to decry
the statements of a speaker at the group’s previous
event.
Last week the group brought Yaron Brook, president and executive
director of the Ayn Rand Institute, to speak on campus. During that
presentation, Brook suggested that the only way for the United
States to deal with Islamic totalitarian regimes is to kill
hundreds of thousands of their supporters in the Middle East.
Brook was not present at Thursday night’s L.O.G.I.C.
event, but his speech found its way into the discussion.
According to several students who attended the event, the
audience included a number of supporters of Lyndon LaRouche, a
political activist with a vocal following.
The group of LaRouche supporters, who clash ideologically with
the conservative L.O.G.I.C. group, accused Brook of being a Nazi,
and questioned whether students would support his views if the
context were different ““ if, for example, he had suggested
that the Ku Klux Klan lynch hundreds of thousands of blacks, said
George Rogers, 23, a guest at the event.
They also mocked Brook’s argument by calling the Ayn Rand
Institute a sex cult, and then distributed condoms emblazoned with
the pictures of wanted Islamic terrorists, claiming that the
condoms would protect users from terrorism.
The featured speaker, Andrew Bernstein, a senior writer and
speaker at the Ayn Rand Institute, also found himself the subject
of criticism at Thursday’s event.
In the event, titled “Religion vs. Morality,”
Bernstein argued that religion is based on subjective desires and
whims and concluded that it is separate from morality.
“Religion is hazardous to your health,” he said.
According to students who attended the event, LaRouche
supporters dressed up as Ayn Rand and former Federal Reserve
Chairman Alan Greenspan and began singing inflammatory songs in the
middle of Bernstein’s speech.
Michelle Fuchs, who was attending the event, said event
organizers called university police after LaRouche supporters and
audience members became engaged in heated verbal disputes.
She added that after officers asked the LaRouche supporters to
leave, they did so without incident.
Rogers said he left after Bernstein began criticizing Jesus and
religion in general.
Fuchs, who also left early, said she found the event
intellectually questionable.
“It was full of it,” she said. “There are
better things to do with your mind.”
But Ryan Koven, a third-year physics student, said he was happy
to see students express so much interest in an issue, even though
he did not necessarily agree with the views being presented.
“It was good to see some action, to see students taking
interest,” he said. “They must really care about this
L.O.G.I.C. club.”