Steven Crowder: 'I HAVE to visit' DePaul University now that I've been banned

CRTV host Steven Crowder has vowed to visit DePaul University despite being blacklisted as a speaker by the school's administration. Administrators rejected a request from a student Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter to host the conservative comedian on campus.

Ema Gavrilovic reports for Campus Reform that the Associate Vice President of Student Development Peggy Burke claimed in a letter rejecting YAF's application to invite the "Louder with Crowder" host that his presence would be contrary to the school's "educational mission."

“The Speaker Review Board denied this speaker request due to their research on Mr. Crowder and came to the conclusion that he creates videos to purposely to rouse and provoke people by making fun of the opposing side,” she wrote. “They didn’t see how this aligns with DePaul’s educational mission.”

The campus YAF chairman, Jorin Burkhart, slammed the administration's decision.

“It’s ridiculous and pathetic that DePaul, a place which boasts in its so-called open-mindedness, is afraid of someone as mainstream and harmless as Steven Crowder,” he told Campus Reform. “However, based on the administration’s pattern of making it difficult to impossible for conservative groups to hold successful events, I can’t say I’m surprised.”

The school has also rejected applications to invite prominent conservative commentator Ben Shapiro and CRTV host Gavin McInnes.

“We students pay an absurd amount of money to attend a ‘Catholic’ school that promised us a liberal arts education and a diversity of ideas,” Burkhart said. “We constantly receive the exact opposite. All I can say is that we’re tired of the bulls---.“

Crowder told Conservative Review that he was not aware that DePaul's YAF chapter wanted to have him come speak. But now that he's been banned, he's decided to go pay the school a visit.

“I had no idea I was even being considered as a speaker on campus. Thanks, guys (and girls, and zis)," Crowder said. "But now that I know they’ve banned me, it seems that one way or another, I HAVE to visit DePaul, right? I mean, what choice do I have?”

Crowder made no apologies for the content of his videos, though he made clear that offending people is not his intent.

“As far as my 'videos,' listen, I’m a late-night comic. I host a late-night show. We do PLENTY of bits that will offend people of all different stripes. I make no apologies," he said.

"That's not our primary intent however. On the flip-side, you can go watch several HOURS of my 'Change My Mind' segments on YouTube, in which I engage strangers and/or students in civil disagreements, unedited, sometimes for hours at a time. Nobody else in the history of news commentary has done that."

"I will respectfully engage with ANYONE willing to have a productive, reasonable dialogue," Crowder continued. "If the faculty and students of DePaul are too weak-minded to do the same, then I feel sorry for them and hope to see full refunds issued to parents who were under the false impression they were paying for a proper education.”

Steven Crowder is the host of "Louder with Crowder," which airs daily on CRTV.

Editor's Note: This article has been updated to add a link in the final paragraph.