By SUSAN JONES
Pitt’s chapter of Turning Point USA has scheduled another controversial speaker — James O’Keefe, the now-fired founder of Project Veritas, a conservative nonprofit known for its hidden-camera stings — to speak Nov. 3 at the O’Hara Student Center.
In the spring, Turning Point, a branch of the national group that promotes conservative politics on college and high school campuses, sponsored two of the three events that sparked counter demonstrations on campus. Cabot Phillips, senior editor of conservative website The Daily Wire, spoke on “Everything the Media Won’t Tell You,” and Riley Gaines, a former collegiate swimmer, spoke out against transgender women competing in women’s sports.
O’Keefe, who describes himself as a guerrilla journalist, and Project Veritas became well known for secretly recording audio and video encounters in academic, governmental and social service organization settings and releasing heavily edited, and often deceptive, recordings to discredit the groups. One of his first recordings, of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), led to O’Keefe paying $100,000 to settle a lawsuit with a former employee of the social welfare agency who accused O'Keefe of misrepresenting him in a widely distributed video.
But lately O’Keefe has faced his own discrediting. He was suspended as chairman and CEO in February by the Project Veritas board and later fired for allegedly misusing donor funds, according to the Associated Press. The Project Veritas board said he spent “an excessive amount of donor funds” on personal luxuries. The Westchester County, N.Y., district attorney’s office confirmed in August that it is “looking into” matters concerning O’Keefe.
The conservative activist formed the O’Keefe Media Group after leaving Project Veritas, and continues to have more than 2 million followers on X (formerly Twitter). The group’s website says it is “Empowering and equipping a movement of thousands of people like you to report things that are wrong, with the support of an in-house team of elite journalists to bring factual, unbiased stories to light.”
Liliana Orozco, president of Pitt’s Turning Point USA chapter and a senior pursuing a law, criminal justice and society major with a political science minor, said she and Vice President Khaleil Laracuente have seen O’Keefe speak many times at other Turning Point events and “we wanted to bring him to Pitt. His presentations are always very eye opening and engaging. He brings a lot of awareness to very important topics. We also have a lot of students who are interested in pursuing investigative journalism, and this is great exposure.”
She did not answer a question about whether the group was aware of O’Keefe’s recent legal troubles. Orozco said they are not worried about protests at the event, “Exposing Corruption with James O’Keefe” at 7 p.m., Nov. 3, in the O’Hara Ballroom.
“The University and University police have many protocols in place to keep us safe,” she said. “We invite opposing viewpoints to come to our events. We don't see a lot of civil disagreement or dialogue anymore within this generation.”
Free speech questions
In the spring, the two events sponsored by Turning Point — and another with conservative commentator and Daily Wire host Michael Knowles and libertarian journalist Brad Polumbo debating “Should transgenderism be regulated by law?” — at O’Hara Student Center sparked a debate about what is free speech.
Some on campus argued the University should cancel the events “featuring individuals who wish to advance a platform of hate and transphobia.” Pitt College Republicans, which sponsored the Knowles event, said at the time, “There will always be people who don’t believe in free speech that want to shut down their opposition, especially when they’re speaking such powerful and important truths.”
The University has taken the position that registered student organizations on campus “are permitted to invite speakers — including highly provocative ones — to campus without University administration deciding what is acceptable and what is not.”
The Student Government Board, which allocated $25,000 in September to the Pitt Turning Point chapter to bring a speaker to campus, said its allocation process “is bound by viewpoint neutrality, which is a legal principle that means we are forbidden from choosing to fund speakers based on the content of their speech,” according to SGB President Ryan Young. “This principle comes from Supreme Court precedent that applies to all public universities dispensing a mandatory fee.” SGB’s website has a statement about its viewpoint neutrality.
SGB in recent weeks also has set new policies that require heavy scrutiny for any speaker request seeking more than $100 per expected attendant and limits individual organizations to no more than $30,000 in speaker funding per year. This change was made because of a large increase in speaker funding requests — about twice as many, week to week, compared to last year, Young said at an SGB meeting.
The board wants to make sure the $900,000 it is allocated to give to student organizations is distributed equitably throughout the year, The Pitt News reported.
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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