The College Fix

Indiana State University has canceled an upcoming guest speech by conservative journalist Rich Lowry, citing safety concerns.

The editor-in-chief of National Review, recently appearing on the Megyn Kelly show, mispronounced the word “migrant” — sounding like the n-word but starting with an m before quickly correcting himself.

The mistake prompted many on the left to accuse Lowry of saying some sort of racist word.

“Indiana State University prioritizes the safety of our students, campus community, and all invited speakers. In light of recent developments and following the advice of our public safety officials regarding campus and community safety concerns, we have made the decision to cancel Rich Lowry’s scheduled appearance on September 30 as part of the Indiana State University Speaker Series,” the university announced late Wednesday.

“In accordance with university policy, this decision is consistent with our commitment to maintaining a secure environment and ensuring the well-being of our students, faculty, staff, and the greater Terre Haute community. … We are actively working to identify opportunities to invite a speaker with a proven history of promoting intellectually diverse viewpoints to the Speaker Series, which will be announced at a later date.”

Lowry responded to the cancelation with frustration in a piece Thursday on National Review headlined: “Next Time Cancel Me for Something I Actually Said.”

He called Indiana State University’s “safety” claims a “classic pretext, often used by university officials to dispense with speakers they find inconvenient.”

“They’d really love to have them, don’t you know, but it will take as much security as is required for Donald Trump to play a round of golf, so, sadly, it just isn’t possible.”

Lowry added:

Like all cancelers, the university wants you to believe that this is just an exception to its scrupulous fair-mindedness: “It is important to stress that this cancellation is not intended to limit our neutrality on different political viewpoints.”

Uh-huh. Taking the side of a woke online fringe and giving it what it wants on the basis of an almost certainly nonexistent security threat doesn’t speak to political neutrality.

And if there is a real security threat, what does that say about Indiana State University? If the young people under its care and tutelage are liable to storm a lecture hall if I show up, that is an indictment of them, not me. …

The fundamental idea behind these charges is that I suffer from a kind of racist Tourette’s syndrome: I walk around and occasionally blurt out racial slurs, and somehow this condition hasn’t been evident throughout 30-something years of speaking in public — until I happened to stumble on the word “migrants.” Then, the terrible truth was revealed.

Many observers have come to Lowry’s defense, including respected linguist John McWhorter.

“He said ‘Haitian mai-gr …’ as a slip of the tongue for ‘migrant,’ carrying ‘Haitian’s ‘ay’ sound into the following word. People do this in ordinary speech now and then. And no, I’m not ‘downplaying racism.’ We just need to look elsewhere for it than here,” McWhorter posted on X.

Conservative education activist Christopher Rufo also weighed in on X: “This is a good response from @RichLowry, who clearly misspoke while talking to @megynkelly. The fringe Left will try to turn mispronunciation into grounds for social annihilation, but the rest of us should refuse to indulge them.”

Lowry ended his National Review piece by writing that he refuses to apologize.

MORE: Check out The College Fix’s Campus Cancel Culture Database

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