AMHERST — Gun rights advocate Antonia Okafor is now selling merchandise to bring attention to Hampshire College’s last-minute decision to cancel her speech from earlier this month.
The graphic printed on the merchandise — a framed poster, beach towel, iPhone case and a variety of shirts — is designed like a retro horror movie poster.
“Hampshire College Presents The Monster Who Came To Speak!” the graphic states above an image of Okafor holding up a gun and people below her screaming. “She came to talk, they were too terrified to listen.”
The products are tagged #HampshireHatesFreedom and are an extension of her line for EmPOWERed, a movement of women on college campuses who feel empowered to carry a gun for self-defense.
Okafor was scheduled to give a talk at Hampshire College on woman empowerment and the Second Amendment on Dec. 6 as part of her campus tour, but the college canceled the event just a few hours before.
“My free speech that day was restricted,” Okafor said, adding that she feels many colleges limit free speech, especially for conservative speakers.
Hampshire College released a statement that night apologizing to Okafor, saying there were errors in the application for the event and that the decision was not based on the subject or content of the speech.
“I filled out my application correctly,” said Rahim Hirani, president of the South Asian and International Students Association, which scheduled the event. He added that he has been hosting events at the school for the past few years.
The college revised the statement the next morning to add “The College did not follow its own procedures in sufficiently reviewing the application before we approved it.”
“We’re changing staff procedures to prevent this from happening again,” spokesman John Courtmanche said in a statement Dec. 13. “Applications won’t be approved until application instructions and procedures are followed, and campus leaders will be consulted for large events requiring extra resources and staffing.”
Courtmanche declined to comment about Okafor’s merchandise.
Jonathan Lash, the college’s president, spoke to Okafor to begin exploring options for rescheduling the event and also asked the student organizer to re-apply, according to Courtmanche.
Hirani will graduate this week and said he has not yet re-applied to host the event, but added that the college has encouraged him to fill out the paperwork.
Hirani, who moved to Massachusetts a few years ago from Pakistan, said he does not know much about American politics. With a majority of liberal students at the college, Hirani said he wanted to learn more about the “flip side.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, looked into the incident, stating on Twitter that while Hampshire College apologizes for canceling the event and vows policy changes, questions over censorship linger.
“If there is a possibility of protest, colleges should make efforts to provide security — to allow both the speech and protest to proceed,” FIRE states in an article on Hampshire College’s decision. “If security or administrative needs do truly make it impossible to accommodate a particular event, officials should be prepared to detail what steps they took or explored short of canceling the speech. That didn’t happen here.”
Caitlin Ashworth can be reached at cashworth@gazettenet.com.