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Good morning, Roca Nation. Welcome to all our new readers. A quick note: We send out this We The 66 newsletter every morning at 7 AM Eastern Time. It’s typically paid, but we occasionally share free articles. We also include four “need-to-know” stories at the start of each newsletter. Roca Members (become one here!) get all for $5.99 a month; free readers get some.
Today’s four need-to-knows are: Israel launches a ground offensive in Gaza City (free); Pam Bondi’s comments on hate speech; uproar following Candace Owens’ statements about Bill Ackman and Charlie Kirk; and the release of texts from accused murderer Tyler Robinson.
By Max Towey
Wearing sweats, Ugg slippers, and a graphic tee, incoming Oxford Union president George Abaraonye stepped up to the podium this May for a now-infamous encounter with a controversial American guest.
As the applause for the previous debater – a girl dressed in a black dress – died down, Abaraonye began his line of inquiry. His tone was as casual as his dress.
“Uh, hey Charlie.”
Across from him stood his American guest, Charlie Kirk, tasked with responding to this resolution: “This house believes Trump has gone too far.”
Abaraonye began by questioning Kirk’s earlier metaphor comparing modern young men to Peter Pan’s “Lost Boys.”
Do you see this generation of lost boys as a failure of masculinity, or are there potential other factors – economic or social factors, such as the Death of the American Dream, the increased cost of living in America, the increased cost of education – are there any other reasons to why this generation of lost boys might exist?
Charlie responded, “I acknowledge all of that. It’s a very good faith question, and thank you.”
Charlie Kirk and George Abaraonye
Charlie continued with his answer, conceding that the loss of industry in America contributed to declines in the well-being of men. He also blamed the vilification of masculinity in schools, the media, and the government, sparking a debate that lasted a total of 12 minutes.
Aside from Abaraonye’s general airiness – looking off to the side, refusing to say thank you or shake hands at the end as other debaters did, etc. – it was a respectful debate. They clashed on a few key points, including the reliability of statistics showing that male suicide is up in America, the UK, and Canada. Abaraonye claimed those data were misleading and a product of better data collection and reporting today; Kirk fired back, saying that body bags don’t lie and that the trend was true across the Anglosphere. Abaraonye returned to his seat with an eye roll, and the next debater continued, this time with a question on evolution.
That was three months ago.
When Charlie Kirk was shot, Abaraonye fired off an all-caps message in a WhatsApp group chat with Oxford Union members: “CHARLIE KIRK GOT SHOT LET’S FUCKING GO 🙏🏽” Another member wrote, “lmfao he’s pro guns.” Abaraonye responded, “It really writes itself doesn’t it.” Another piled on, “All the republicans seem to 💀.” One student, named Rahul, pushed back: “How are you celebrating someone getting shot?”
Abaraonye didn’t merely celebrate in the private WhatsApp group chat; he posted on Instagram, too: “CHARLIE KIRK GOT SHOT LOOOL.”
Little did he realize these texts would make it out of the group chat. When Kirk was pronounced dead, a member of the group leaked screenshots of their Kirk reactions, including Abaraonye’s – and they went mega-viral, all the way to Elon Musk’s feed. Unsurprisingly, Musk wasn’t thrilled.
“Kick him out,” he replied to a post with a petition about removing Abaraonye from his position as president-elect.
Amid the backlash, Abaraonye apologized – sort of. He said he “reacted impulsively" and told The Guardian, “Those words did not reflect my values. At the same time, my reaction was shaped by the context of Mr. Kirk’s own rhetoric – words that often dismissed or mocked the suffering of others.”
He then backtracked, telling the New Statesman, “My words were no less insensitive than [Kirk’s] – arguably less so. The difference is I had the humility to recognize when I strayed from my core values.” It seems here that Abaraonye may have strayed from his core grammar, saying “less insensitive” instead of “more insensitive.” But that’s besides the point.
Abaraonye proceeded to further dilute his apology: “The irony is not lost on me that many of those now threatening violence and hurling abuse toward me, and toward people who look like me, have shown no interest in holding Charlie Kirk to the same standard when he mocked children killed by gun violence or excused the deaths of women and children abroad.”
To be clear, Abaraonye is not merely an ordinary member of the Oxford Union, but its president-elect. Will he remain in that role, leading one of the world’s leading free speech institutions?
That question has sparked a political and media battle, where both sides claim to have the free speech upper hand. We’ll get to that in this article, but first, some context on the Oxford Union itself.
25 undergraduate students founded the Oxford Union in 1823 to debate “any subject not immediately involving theological questions.” Originally called the United Debating Society, its first debate was about Parliamentarianism vs Royalism during the English Civil War. In the centuries since, the students’ project has become the most prestigious debating society in the world. In the past 100 years, it’s hosted four US Presidents – Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton – the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Queen Elizabeth II, and many more.
Its steadfast commitment to free speech has invited controversy at times, including in 1964, when Malcolm X addressed the Union and declared that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” It allows such speech because it believes in airing a “wide range of ideas and opinions.” Its website claims, “The Oxford Union continues to uphold the principle of free speech through the exchange and debate of a wide range of ideas and opinions, presented by a diverse range of speakers – some inspiring, others controversial.”
But what about when those ideas come from inside the Union itself? And what if those ideas come from within the union itself, and they’re opposed to free speech?
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Abaraonye has asserted that he feels violence can be used to topple unsavory institutions he doesn’t support: “At times, there is simply nothing else that can be required except for violent retaliation. And this is a view I wholeheartedly agree with; the view that some institutions are too broken, too oppressive to be reformed, like cancers of our society. And they must, and they should be taken down by any means necessary.”
That statement, uttered in a different debate but just feet away from where he debated Kirk, puts his celebratory response to the assassination of Kirk in an unflattering light. It also prompted James Price, a former Oxford Union president who was serving as secretary of the organization that owns the Oxford Union’s buildings, to resign.
Price wrote:
An institution as well-known and newsworthy as the Oxford Union has a responsibility to do just this. Allowing someone who has praised “violent retaliation” and appeared to make comments mocking the shooting of a man (someone he himself stood across in the Union just months ago) who engaged in public discourse, to remain as head of the world’s most prestigious debating society, is not acceptable. You would not suffer the head of a cancer charity to be rooting for the tumours.
So far, the Oxford Union has disavowed Abaraonye’s comments and promised “disciplinary action.” In an official statement, it declared, “[Abaraonye’s] reported views do not represent the Oxford Union's current leadership or committee's view.” Its statement continued, “We reaffirm our stance that the Oxford Union firmly opposes all forms of political violence and strongly stands by our commitment to free speech and considerate debate.” A widely circulated petition is now calling for his removal as president-elect.
Some are calling this an exercise in “cancel culture.”
Krystal Ball, the left-wing half of the popular YouTube news show Breaking Points, wrote: “The policing of everyone’s thoughts and emotions around Charlie Kirk’s death is wild. Cancel culture on steroids backed by the full force of the government.”
Others, like professor and author Luke Burgis, disagree. He wrote, “There is a massive difference between ‘cancel culture’ – which leads to public punishment because a person doesn’t conform to expectations of the zeitgeist – and people who need to step down or be removed because their actions literally betray the very essence and mission of the particular organization they belong to. Obviously, George Abaraonye needs to step down or be removed from Oxford Union.”
So both sides think they have free speech on their side. Yet there is a larger question: How did the Oxford Union elect a president so hostile to free speech – or at least supportive of political violence – in the first place?
The answer may lie in a recent survey from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the US’ leading campus free speech group, which found that 34% of college students believe violence is justified to combat speech they deem “hateful.”
If the Oxford Union’s students are part of that 34%, perhaps its usefulness as a debate forum has run its course. I, for one, would not want to speak at a venue that would celebrate my death just four months later.
Editor’s Note
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—Max and Max
