Stanford afraid of conservatives speaking on campus: Charlie Kirk

Despite what he described as hurdles from Stanford University, the conservative Turning Point USA activist Charlie Kirk said he and his colleague Candace Owens will speak at the Palo Alto, California, campus later this month.

“The amount of hurdles and obstacles the administration has thrown at us – the fees, the changes of locations – they’re afraid of conservatives coming on campus,” Kirk told Stuart Varney during a FOX Business interview on Wednesday. “And I kind of challenge them and say, ‘If our ideas were so bad, let us come on campus, and no one will show up.’ ”

The event, “Make Stanford Great Again,” hosted by the Stanford College Republicans, will be on May 29.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Stanford confirmed Kirk would be speaking at the university this month.

"The Stanford College Republicans, after paying a past due bill from a prior event, met all requirements for hosting him," E.J. Miranda,  senior director of university media relations, wrote in an email to FOX Business. This isn’t the first time the Turning Point USA duo have taken higher education by storm: Owens and Kirk spoke in April at the University of California at Berkeley and UCLA. Owens drew national attention when she criticized Black Lives Matter members who protested during her event at UCLA.

“They’re a bunch of whiny toddlers, pretending to be oppressed for attention,” she wrote of the protesters on Twitter after the event.

During the Varney interview, Kirk dismissed concerns of potential violence between event attendees and protesters as an excuse to keep a “leftist echo chamber” on campus.

“They’re pandering to the activists when they use that as an excuse,” he said. “They’re giving these radicals a platform when they say, ‘Oh, there might be demonstrations, therefore this viewpoint should not be allowed on campus.’”