By Alexandra Buss

Famed conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro addressed a sold out crowd in the University of Connecticut’s Rome Ballroom Wednesday night.

After thanking the Young America’s Foundation and the College Republicans for bringing him to The University of Connecticut, Shapiro lambasted UConn for the level of security they chose to employ at his event and the fact that the general public was not allowed to attend his lecture.

“I only wish that their safety protocols extended to a lot of members of the general public to show up…Something has to be done about a system where a few crazed leftists decide that they don’t want to hear somebody speak and therefore, people from the outside, who pay taxes to universities like this one, can’t get in,” Shapiro said.

Ben Shapiro spoke to a sold-out event hosted by the UConn College Republicans and the Young America’s Foundation.
Photo: LJ Karam

Shapiro also discussed the UConn Democrats’ coinciding event, a lecture by the editor of Current Affairs magazine, Yale Law graduate Nathan J. Robinson.

“I do find it sort of amazing, by the way, that the left is so afraid of open conversation that they scheduled an event at the exact same time. I think they should totally have their event and they should have their event yelling at me and all of them, that’s great; but, I would prefer that they actually come to this event and then they can ask questions, because when we have the Q&A session, I have one simple rule: if you disagree with me, you raise your hand and you go to the front of the line,” Shapiro said.

He then discussed the recent trend, as brought into the limelight by Oprah Winfrey, of sharing “your truth.”

“There is no such thing as ‘your truth,’” Shapiro said. “There is just the facts and your opinion. You don’t get to make things up and then call it ‘your truth.’”

Photo: LJ Karam

Shapiro went on to cite a number of statistics in order to dispute several common beliefs he claimed are held by liberals regarding  topics such as white privilege, the disproportionate number of black Americans in jail for drug offenses and the oppressed women in America.

“There’s another theory that people on the left like to tout…that women are victims. Women are victimized in the United States. Women are having the roughest time of all… We need women’s marches, we need to walk around wearing bizarre pink hats that represent the vagina for some unknown reason. We can’t say why we’re there, we can’t say what we’re protesting, all we know is that knit caps are awesome,” Shapiro said.

Photo: LJ Karam

The room erupted into cheers and vigorous applause whenever Shapiro finished with one of his topics or said something that the audience particularly liked. During these periods of applause, a handful of attendees would stand up while applauding to further express their agreement with whatever point Shapiro had just made. A master of one-liners, Shapiro also drew many laughs from the audience throughout his lecture.

The audience was comprised of approximately 500 people and largely consisted of young men clad in business casual attire and the occasional “Make America Great Again” baseball hat.

Photo: LJ Karam

Daniel Ruskin and Jareliz Diaz contributed reporting.

Article read by Daniela Doncel.