Dear Dean Williams, 

We the students of Barrett, the Honors College, condemn the "Health, Wealth and Happiness" event that is being hosted by the T.W. Lewis Center on January 8th. This event includes several right-wing extremists such as Charlie Kirk and Dennis Prager. Kirk founded the "Professor Watchlist,” a system that is intended to harass professors that they deem "Un-American" for the content that they teach. One of the other speakers, Dennis Prager, the founder of PragerU, has made copious hateful comments about transgender individuals, Muslims, and the LGBTQ+ community as a whole and intends to exclude them from the Barrett Community. 

The ASU website states “Arizona State University promotes a campus that is open, safe and supportive,” but allows speakers who are attempting to actively exclude groups of students. These speakers have actively attacked the LGBTQ+ community, women, people of color, as well as all of their freedoms. This event is being advertised as a "Health, Wealth and Happiness" event through the official Barrett press, but the speakers online are claiming that it is a talk about defending against anti-American sentiments and the ability to spread their hateful, anti-intellectual agenda. 

This petition is not an attempt to cancel the event. We, the Barrett Scholars, believe that student organizations and faculty should have the ability to invite speakers that they see fit. However, we protest the idea of a university donor being able to determine the events hosted. The actions of the T.W. Lewis Center do not reflect the will of the students who have signed.

We as students would like you to question this event, and consider how it reflects upon the Barrett community. We would like you to consider how this event has already affected our community, as the professors who have signed the petitions have received threats on their lives, which have resulted in heightened security measures around the Barrett complex.

• How will this event affect the Barrett BIPOC community, knowing that their college has decided to host racist speakers who have called for the cancellation of Black History Month?
• How will this event affect the Barrett LGBTQ+ community knowing that their college has decided to host transphobic speakers that have claimed that queer people are "incapable of thinking as a person" as well as regularly using anti-trans slurs and other bigoted languages?
• How will this event affect the Barrett community knowing that their college has decided to host speakers that are supporters of "The Big Lie" about the 2020 election and who might have been involved in the January 6th insurrection?

We hope that our collective voices will be heard and that we are able to convey our efforts to keep Barrett a place of inclusivity, honor, and community.

Sincerely,

The Concerned Students of Barrett, The Honors College