and passionately run to those who have suffered under the overbearing and abusive arm of the federal government. along the way, you will have to persevere. because there will be adversity. there will be sacrifice. it will cost you something. many of your peers may sit back and sneer that you are even involved in the political arena. however you're the heros because you're serving without fame or fortune. arthur ash said it this way, true heroism is remarkably sober. very undramatic. it is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost but the urge to serve all others at whatever the cost. my friend, do more than make an argument. make a difference. may god provide the path and may we have the courage to follow. god bless and thank you very much. thank you. thank you very much. thank you. thank you.

>> ♪ ♪ ♪ cpac met recently at national harbor just outside of washington, d.c. next, a discussion how student can effectively organize on college campuses. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> good afternoon, cpac. my name is bryan. i think we have an interesting panel and interesting topic here. our four guest panelists have different backgrounds to bring. i will introduce them, let them give their thoughts on the topic and we will get right into it. this panel is interesting in kpa

trigger warnings, spaces and current nanny state of the campus and what we can do to protect the current snowflake generation from themselves. so my first guest, the panel here, is dr. matthew spalding, associate vice president and dean of educational programs at hills dale college here in washington, d.c. he is also the best selling author of we still hold these truths. and in addition he taught at hillsdale college as well as george mason university and catholic university. matt. >> great. great to be with you. i hope some of the hillsdale students are still here. can i hear them. there we good. we don't really believe in all this nonsense. we are micro aggressions all the time. we don't have any trigger warnings. we believe that one goes to college to learn something. the problem with this today is that people aren't learning anything. this is not the educational project. what we are seeing is a complete playing out, if you will, of the

intellectual rot of the academy. it goes back to moral rel vice em. they have no sense of their own pufrp purpose or their own mission and they are devouring themselves. we see these absurdities of political correctness on the campus. the campus has the power to enforce speech codes but also more and more the federal government through title ix and things like that. this is where it is going where we are seeing in a lot of big college campuses. >> madison is a washington times columnist and conservative commentator who is frequently on fox news. also a regional press secretary for trump's inauguration. madison is in her final semester at law school at ohio state university and formerly served adds staff edit forohio state

journal of criminal law. in addition to television and writing madison is an athlete and beauty queen. she capture id coveted title of miss ohio usa. welcome. >> thank you so much. it is so great to be with everybody today. and to be here at cpac with my fellow panelists. a quick thank to you matt and mercedes schlapp. they have put together a inn incredible cpac. thank you to them. my family immigrated here less than a hundred years ago. they came to chase the american dream. they moved across land and sea to find the unparalleled freedoms of america. where all of us from free speech and freedom of religion. less than a hundred years later to their dismay and the dismay of many in this room free speech has practically been thrown out the window on college campuses. ohio state's law school campus i

was the target of attacks for writing a column in the washington times for writing what i feel is important in the society, h which is abortion. i was threatened but i didn't back down. i know so many of you, like me, have dealt with this. or have seen your children, grand children, friends or family members deal with this on their campuses. you have seen the snow flakes and negative effect that safe spaces have on college campuses today. but the reality remains that future of conservatism is at take. our future leaders will not be produced from safe spaces. in the real world there are no safe spaces which i is why i think it is so important we have young conservatives here today. and on the stage i have seen the faces of the leaders. they are not afraid to voice opinions and refuse to be

stifled by not willingness of others to receive opinions not their own. it is overly sensitive of what we like to call snow flakes. and it is important ton back down or react based on our emotions. i tht most important thing young conservatives can be doing is stand up and continue to stand up for what is right and moral for speaking truth and refusing to back down. thank souch fyou so much for coming. i'm so glad to be with you. >> our next panelist amanda owens. from founder of few actual female leaders, known as ffl, building hundreds of thousands of women who support and empower each other on college campusis. apl aamanda? >> thank you for having me. can we give a round of applause for cpac and acu. so i'm so excited to be here to

share what our organization does on college campuses. in my journey i started a future female leaders in my college dorm room. and it started as a an anonymous twitter account. i started that because i was very involved in 20912 electi12. is y supported mitt romney passionately. i was being unfriended on facebook, having names thrown at me. i was a young girl trying to grow her confidence and gre professionally and personally and so i found myself just wanting an outlet to get my ideas out there. and so i created that account. and i tweeted about politics. i tweeted about the 2012 election. and i also talked about, you know, the highs and lows of being a young conservative woman on campus. and it really resonated with a

lot of women. we grew our social media very quickly. and we found we were hitting a niche of girls that felt like their views were not being represented on college campuses. women's centers were not representing them because they were conservative. and i see that there's so much, you know, hatred and unacceptance of conservatives, all conservatives but especially conservative women. here at future female leaders we have a motto that says being a conservative woman can be hard but we try to make it easier. so i'm so excited to talk to you guys today about what we're doing on college campuses to bring a platform to conservative women and conservatives all across all identities. >> thank you, amanda. our final panelist, lawrence jones, is an author, a conservative radio show host, and he also is a contributor and guest host on the dana show, dana loesch's show on the blaze, lawrence jones.

>> those that value freedom but refuse to agitate and hate agitation are just like men who want a crop, have crops, but refuse to plow the ground. those are the words of frederick douglass. i'm here to tell you guys in the words of andrew breitbart, freedom does not care about your feelings. [ applause ] and just because many on the left sent their kids to the school without hurting their feelings it is not our job to coddle their feelings. and if we don't stop -- i was on msnbc earlier today, and they got upset and offended because i said obama took care of the latinos but not the black community. and they were like, msnbc, why do you have him on? and all this.

and i saw my conservative friends saying, how could they say that about you? how can they say that about a black man? how could you -- i was like, guys, just stop. i'm not a snowflake. okay? because like frederick douglass, i can fight. like booker t. washington i can build. and like harriet tubman, if you try to cross me, i will defend myself. [ applause ] i am honored to be on this panel. i hope the young people who are in this crowd today leave more inspired than ever to take on not only the students on the campuses but the liberal professors that try to target us, scare us, kick us off of campuses. we are more stronger than ever, and we're coming back after cpac with a nice message for them. come and take it. [ applause ]

>> all right, guys. so how this panel is going to -- this town hall panel is going to work is we're actually going to take questions from you. so there's two microphones over there as well as on facebook and twitter. but to get it started off there, in my role at the leadership institute working with college students conservative across the country as well as campus reform this is what we hear, trigger warnings, microaggressions, safe spaces. the question becomes what are we doing for the next generation of leaders? one can only imagine had this existed when elizabeth warren went to college we'd probably have a trigger warning filed every day in the u.s. senate. the question is for each one of you guys what can each one of these people in the audience do to make a difference on their campus and what should they do immediately when they leave cpac today on monday morning when they get back to the college campus? you want to go ahead and start us off? >> organize. one thing, as conservatives we have to have a real conversation with ourselves.

we do a poor job in organizing. and part of the problem is because sometimes we become babies and we'll allow ourselves to be bullied on these campuses. you have a right to be on campus, especially if you're paying all that damn money. [ applause ] and so if they try to kick you off campus, go to the coffee shop down the street. if they try to scare you, make sure you pass campus carry on the campus. that way when they try to come for you you can raise your gun and say back down. it's about organizing. and i know that may make some people uncomfortable. but it's the truth. it's the truth. they shut us down on every single campus. yes, we're going to have some controversial figures. but what do they have? so i encourage us to fight. >> anybody else? >> going along with what he's saying, when we look at college students today, for every one student who is standing up and trying to organize and speaking out there's probably ten mover

more that have been silenced by what's going on. continuing to reach out and realizing this is just the beginning for us, conservatives are the future of this country, they're the future, they're our future leaders. so i think they need to continue to reach out to these students who've dealt with these situations and haven't received the support they deserve from their administrations and their professors. >> let's go to the first question here from the audience. >> hi. my name's evan thayer from new york, though i live in the san francisco bay area now. is the attack on free speech on college campuses a failure of institutions or is it a failure of parenting and families? >> matt? >> i suppose in a certain sense it's a failure of all of the above. i think what we're seeing on campuses now, this intolerance from the left naturally comes out of where the left has been for some time. it's been going this way.

and they gave up a long time ago on the idea that there's some aspect of truth or something that education is meant to be there for in the first place. once they've done that, once they believe that all truths are relative and once a culture accepts that and the administration starts working with those students and listening to them, you have a radical tenured leftist on the faculty and now the administrations of the colleges, which in the '60s were opposed to this, are cooperative. you put all this together. it naturally goes in this direction. this has been a long time coming. this has been going on for some time. the culture is moving, the media's moving in this direction. that makes it all the move important for conservatives on campus to work together, to organize, to find and support faculty that are friendly to your arguments on campus and work with them. there aren't that many of us, but keep in mind we are not merely protecting our free speech, our ability to make

arguments but we're preserving something that the modern academy has given up on, namely defending western civilization and what it stands for. if we're not going to do that, who is go to do that? >> let's take our next question over here. >> my name is brendan cassel. i'm from what i like to call the occupied south in bethesda, maryland. i'm a senior in high school, and i will be attending texas a&m in the fall. [ applause ] thank you. while this may be a more conservative university, what kind of resistance can i expect from liberal staff and liberal students and how do i handle that at the college level? >> madison, maybe use a current student. >> first of all, congratulations. i have a younger sister starting college in the fall as well. i think one of the first things you have to keep in mind is you're going it receive a lot of i would say unfair treatment in the classroom and this is something i've seen at the law school and i've seen a lot of

other people talk about at their universities at the undergrad level. so when you're in class and you're going through these types situations it can be really difficult but you can't change what you're doing. you can't stop raising your hand because one time a professor tries to shut you down because at the end of the day that's how they win. you need to speak up for what's right and what's moral. you need to continue to speak truth. and that can be really difficult. so i think that's the number one thing you need to do. and one thing i advocate a lot of students to do as well is most of the time it's going to be conservatives and religious students that are going to be discriminated against but if you see a liberal student that has their free speech rights stifled that's the time i'll stand up as well. i don't care if i agree with anything they're saying. i don't have to agree with one thing they ever say but i agree with their right to say it and that's what we have to remember. that's what we're fight forget and that's what we need them to do for us. so you need to set that example as well if you do encounter that situation in a more conservative class you have at texas. >> i don't want to forget about our audience out there on social media. so do we have a question on social media?

>> alana lee b. would like to say what would you say to conservatives or those who claim conservatives are insensitive by fighting against safe spaces and trigger warnings? >> fake news. >> amanda, do you want to take this one? >> thank you, alana, for the great question. that's important. we want to make sure we're representing free speech. but we also want to maintain a positive message of conservatism. and i think that's really important. that's what my organization does. and that's how we gain independence and can get some people converted from -- get them seeing the light. from democrats over to republicans. and you know, just having -- talking to them in a way that resonates with them and get personal. share personal stories as to why you're conservative. when you humanize yourself, it becomes a lot harder to tear you down and call you names. so get personal with them. share personal stories and humanize yourself because we're

not monsters like they claim us to be. >> let's go to our next question from the audience. >> is this working? hi. any name is claude farouk and i'm a college student going to stony brook university in long island. my question is as a conservative of color i've heard many insults claiming that you can't be conservative and a person of color. and typically when insults get thrown around the discussion ends. how do you keep a discussion going? and i guess like try to change their point of view from there. >> first of all, i'm proud to be chocolate. so that's just the first thing. i love my people. okay? and this whole notion that oh, you've got to fit this. do they realize what black folks were originally? they freed the slaves. we were the first in congress, those were black folks. black folks founded the republican party of texas and are still active in texas. [ applause ]

my people have been fighting way too long to allow people on college campuses to tell us how to eat, how to think, and which safe space to be on. the safest space for you is at home. okay? i'm not against safe spaces. go home. this is the real world. there is no safe space but your home. that's all you've got. [ applause ] >> one more question from the audience over here. >> hi. i'm katie damforth. i go to depaul university in lincoln park, illinois. and my question is on social justice indoctrination in high schools. and my example is nutria university in winnetka, illinois. i know i read in the "wall street journal" last weekend that they're going to have an event on february 20th that's called today's struggle for

racial civil rights. and i was wondering if there's like ways to combat that in a sense that they're not really inviting any civil rights speakers and i know parents are very frustrated about that. so i wonder if you have any advice for them. >> home school. >> look, the objective of progressive education was to take over the educational system in the united states, and we see it going on in the college but it's much more decadent in many ways at the high school level, especially on things like social justice or education, the types of progressive education they want to shape. it's extremely destructive because the problem we face is if people become immune to this and accepting of it by the time you're in college when you're supposed to be liberating the mind, opening it to the great ideas that we have to teach, you've really destroyed the whole project. this is why how we have education reform and how we get government out of the way and empower parents at the high

school level especially to control their education is absolutely key because otherwise the modern state is going to continue down this path. and that's what's driving a lot of this, is the politics behind it and the political correctness of the modern government. >> so you guys, we've talked about what the students can do, organize and fight back. but what can they do more specifically and should the parents get involved because we're not just talk about this happening at small little private schools. this is happening at major state schools that are funded by all of your taxpayer dollars. at what point does the general citizenry need to get in and fight back and try to challenge some of these presidents of the university and the board of regents? >> yeah. >> go ahead, madison. >> ladies first. i think one of the biggest things i noticed was very helpful on my campus was counteracting by holding your own events. getting people in your community. it doesn't have to be just students. i reached out to people in the pro life community with my issue

specifically. i write the column talking about the statistics of abortion in the black community. i received threats for people to beat me up. they said they wanted to rape me so i know what it's like to want an abortion. they started holding bowl for abortion at the school. it's a very difficult situation. i said as i move forward i can't just sit back and let this happen. even if i get over it and i'm okay i need to do something for this cause. i stepped forward, reached out to pro-life groups in my community and i held my own events. i went out and spoke about this, spoke with politicians in my state. reach out to your local politicians. they can be very helpful and hold these events. basically doing what they're doing for your cause. >> okay. real quick? >> especially as it relates to your social justice warrior i think messaging is a key component when dealing with the left on this. and my big sister, she's somewhere out there, sunny johnson at breitbart does an excellent job telling us how to defend ourselves. and it's important to realize

when the social justice warriors are talking about white supremacy, they're talking about institution racism, when we all say it doesn't exist it's a problem. it exists in their progressive institutions. you guys own this. you created this. so don't come at us and talk about white privilege and progressive policies and that we need to be diverse when hollywood is so white and you guys are always saying why isn't it diversity there? don't come at us. your institutions founded this. so you guys own it. [ applause ] >> let's go back to the audience. >> hi. my name's nicole bean, and i'm the chairman of the depaul college republicans, same place as katie, and we were recently named friar's worst school for free speech 2017. so how do you think that we can

combat private institutions prohibiting free speech and speakers? >> i think getting involved like madison said. getting involved with like-minded groups. we are so blessed to have so many awesome groups on our community and our campuses. i think there's something to be said for strength in numbers. let your voice be heard and let's turn it into a roar. let's connect with your community, get involved with local politicians on the state level and just get a big crowd and let's let everyone know what's going on. >> you've probably taken the first step by contacting a great group like fire or lions defending freedom to help you fight back as a student on your own campus against those policies. >> and can we be more unified? i know we had a tough primary. but it's over. we've got a president now. it's time to like unite and fight against the left. they always unify at the end. y'all saw bernie sell his soul

at the end. so we can unify and get it done. >> and even on a campus like yours it's not about the numbers. if you can get large numbers that's ideal. but even if you can get five or six people together, at my law school i got five or six girls together. that's not a lot. the liberal organizations had more. but we were able to make a difference. get together who you can. just don't ever let them silence you. >> let me ask you all too, do you think in the wake of the election this is actually changing, there's a momentum that changes? we've seen a number of states such as arizona, tennessee, north carolina and the state legislators starting to take up bills to demand free speech on all public and college campuses. >> look, the republicans control more state houses than they have ever in the past since the 1920s. so they've got a lot of leverage. and i come back to my general point here. i think that free speech as it's been presented is extremely important. we should fight these battles precisely as you guys have laid

out. but we've got to keep in mind this is a political battle of great import. when it comes to republican campuses the state needs to use more leverages over them to impose more rules for truth, free speech. when it comes to private institutions that's harder. how do you get leverage over them? one thing is break up the monopoly they have and the complete liberal model of higher education. absolutely corrupt. they're get 30% and 40% of their budget from government. this is a much larger political problem than merely, although it's extremely important, than merely free speech. we must defend our free speech. but that's a defensive move. we need to go on the offense and go after the academy. large segments of the academy, especially these with huge endowments and they're paying $60,000 for tuition and room.

until there's room for them to allow this discussion that allows for conservative voices we're not going to see any change from those campuses. >> my name's linda and i'm from houston. i want to object to one thing. you're talking about young conservatives. i'm 60 and i'm a graduate student at university because i'm still there. two weeks ago i just about got kicked out of my third out of nine classes for expressing conservative views. the first class i was -- she tried to kick me out of the program because i said something politically incorrect. she apologized the next week because apparently i was right. the next time i objected to studies that were showing that conservatives were young -- i'm sorry, not young. fat, ugly, and a whole bunch of other things. and i questioned the whole methodology. it was later shown i was right, they were wrong, and they -- never mind. and two weeks ago i objected to someone talking about the myth

of welfare queens and he just threatened to kick me out. i was in massachusetts when dukakis was -- that was the only state he took and i was one of the heads of the state college of republicans. so i'm tough and can take it and will continue to speak out. but i'm really concerned about young -- the real young people. how are they going to speak up when i'm getting shut down like this? and i've got a ton of guts and a lot of experience but they don't. >> i'll start. i think like i said before they just can't back down. and it's so difficult. it's not easy by any means, but there's amazing organizations out there that will work with them. like fire, like alliance defending freedom, like concerned women for america. all three of these organizations really stepped up and helped me. i had professors and students who were trying to get me to either resign or get kicked off from being a staff editor on the law journal at my law school,

which they had no ability to do, but they tried anyways. and so they need to continue to reach out to these organizations and i think we as people who are standing up can continue to do what we can to talk to them to make them aware of them. not all students are aware these organizations exist or they can do this. >> i think one thing you and any other student who matter what their age is and can start doing is holding these professors accountable. record that professor, report it. and get that out there so everybody can see just what's going on in america's college classrooms. i think we have time for one last question, so we'll go here. >> my name is sheryl howell and i live in fairfax county and i love hearing about the importance of the younger generation. not that i'm against the older generation. but i got hooked in high school from my government teacher who demanded that everybody had to participate in the election process by joining either the young republican or young

democrat party and help campaign. because in virginia there's always an election. i talk about this a lot on rnc questionnaires, everywhere. when i see young college republicans. i'm like you guys i think really need to get into the high schools and start establishing young republican clubs. again, our message is a winning message. our message is not about color. it's not about age. it's about quality of life and our heritage, which embraces everybody. and the liberals have highjacked our message and are trying to define us and we need to get back into the schools. our future voters are in high school. and we need to get them, equip them so that when they do get to college and they do have to deal

with these professors they can have the confidence to push back and have the tools to know who to contact on the administration because one thing the liberals like to do is repeat what they hear. but when you ask a liberal why do you think that way they can't answer the question. >> i think that's more a statement than a question. but it's a great point made. i want to let each one of the panelists have a final thought before time's up on this panel. >> i'll talk about her question. i think we have to take some responsibility as republicans for this as well. i beat up on the liberals enough already. there was a point in time my seasoned republicans out there where they used to tell us hey young people, wait your turn, wait your turn. and the meantime, the liberals were recruiting people that couldn't even vote yet to knock on doors. and then when we got our tails kicked then we wanted the young people to be involved. it's our fault. and it's time for the grandparents and the mothers and fathers take their kids and put

them in front of them to explain to them what's going on. >> i have a 10-year-old son. he was here at cpac on thursday missing school. >> amanda, final thoughts? >> i started my organization future female leaders because i felt alone on college campuses. and i didn't know what to do. but i knew be i wanted my voice to be heard and i did the only then i knew to do, which was get on social media and try to have a megaphone and try to speak for conservative principles. i think it's absolutely absurd that the professors are supposed to be leading by example and they are pushing safe spaces and trigger warnings and coddling our future leaders. >> madison? >> i just want to make a quick comment about we're in an environment right now where we have a president of the united states who supports our movement, supports our message. we control the house and the senate and we control so many seats within our own states. so this is the time where we're

going to make the most difference as ever before. we need to come together and unite. and like i said we have the support of our amazing president donald j. trump. let's get behind him and use that to make changes on our campuses and our states. >> dr. spalding? >> i think these are all great comments. it's been a great panel. i thank my panelists. but your point about high school education is absolutely correct. this is why hillsdale college among others is starting charter schools all over the country. education is what it's all about. what we need is just better education. good education. my last thought would be to encourage you to keep in mind going to college is not fighting between the left and the right. it's not about conservatism and liberalism. it's about learning. it's about good teaching. and you should make the most of that. and the most important thing you should do is if you're a conservative or you think you're a conservative or you wish to conserve something and to be truly liberating is to educate yourselves and to learn about

the good, the true and the beautiful. those are the high things and that's what makes life worth living. that's why you're conservative. that's what we wish to conservative. and the best thing you can do is have a good formation and understand and know those things because then you can have those fights but if you don't know those things you won't be in a position to do so. that's the most important thing. get the most out of your college education. and if you're not at a good college, come to hillsdale or take an online course. there are places where you can learn this. but get a good education. >> i want to thank all the panelists for being on the panel today. and i want to thank all the students attending cpac. i would challenge all you guys to try to go back and make a difference on your campus so we can have a panel like this next year talking about all the victories you already accomplished in one year on your campus. thank you. ♪ this is going to be the best day of my life ♪ [ applause ]