After Stanford University’s student government refused to help fund an upcoming traditional marriage conference, calling the topic “hate speech,” campus administrators have agreed to foot the bill for the astronomical amount of security they require for the event.
The Stanford Anscombe Society, the conservative student group hosting the upcoming “Communicating Values: Marriage, Family & the Media” conference, had been asked by campus officials to pay a whopping $7,000 for police officers to man the event, an amount ratcheted down to $5,600 after the students were forced to downsize their gathering because the student government voted against funding it.
Administrators didn’t readily offer the help, but the plight of the conservative students hosting the event became fodder for national news outlets. Then the Stanford Anscombe Society on Wednesday asked that the security fee be removed “since it imposed a tax on free speech.”
Less than 24 hours after that request was submitted, officials sent an email to conference organizers Thursday morning saying they “found” some money they could use to shoulder the security costs.
The email simply read: “Hi everyone. Found more funds to subsidize the full cost of the security.”
The Stanford Anscombe Society, in responding to the funding development, stated the money was discovered after the group took their conference from its originally scheduled two days down to one in the wake of the funding crunch.
“We are delighted that Stanford University has demonstrated its continuing commitment to free speech by providing appropriate security for our event, rather than forcing us to pay for our own safety on campus,” stated Judy Romea, the society’s co-president, on its website. “Since we no longer face this financial burden, which had forced us to scale back the conference and cancel some speakers’ sessions, we are considering whether and how to revise the schedule so we can host the conference as originally planned and even open up certain sessions to the entire Stanford community.”
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