Conservative speaker draws protesters at U of I campus

CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, Ill. (WAND)- A clash at the University of Illinois Thursday night after a conservative student group invited documentarian Matt Walsh to screen his recently released film "What is a Woman?".

Walsh drew crowds of supporters and protesters to the film screening and a Question and Answer session.

LGBTQ+ advocates began chanting outside the lecture hall as Walsh appeared on stage.

WAND News spoke with the organizers for the Walsh event who explained why they invited the controversial figure to campus.

"The first day of classes I saw a sign on the bathroom door that said 'any sex can enter any restroom' and I was not ok with that. So we brought him here just to present a different set of ideas on campus. Usually our ideas are flushed out by other students on our campus. So very important just to show that the conservative community is standing firm here at the University of Illinois," Bailey Parks-Moore, Chairwoman of the Young Americans for Freedom University of Illinois Chapter, told WAND News.

Organizers at the national level of Young Americans for Freedom, said the idea was to bring diverse thought to the U of I campus.

*KYLE FERREBEE- YOUNG AMERICA'S FOUNDATION*

"Its not something that they're getting in their classrooms, its not something that they're getting on their campus. So we're trying to open up students' perspective and recognize that there's not just one view," Kyle Ferrebee, Director of the Midwest office for Young Americans for Freedom, told WAND News.

But protestors said they believe Walsh's message involves hate speech against transgender people, and should not be allowed on campus.

The University of Illinois' freedom of speech policy allows all voices on campus. While protests are allowed, campus staff said students are not allowed to disrupt an event to the point of stopping a speaker from presenting their ideas.