The Daily Wire founder and conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro announced Monday that he’s been banned from speaking at DePaul University due to security concerns.

John Minister, vice chairman of the DePaul Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter, reported Monday for The Daily Wire that Bob Janis, the university’s vice president of facilities operations, announced the ban in an email last week.

“Given the experiences and security concerns that some other schools have had with Ben Shapiro speaking on their campuses, DePaul cannot agree to allow him to speak on our campus at this time,” Mr. Janis wrote in the email to DePaul’s YAF chapter’s executive board, The Daily Wire reported.

Mr. Shapiro called the ban an assault on free speech.

“It’s both pathetic and predictable that the University is happy to grant a veto on speakers to snowflake leftists so long as the leftists threaten violence,” he told The Daily Wire. “This is how free speech dies: when people in power cave to the bullies rather than standing up for basic rights.”

Mr. Minister called the ban an “embarrassment for DePaul.”

“For the past six months we have worked with Ben on a high-profile tour of college campuses and witnessed with our own eyes the vicious and threatening behavior of tyrannical leftists who have been programmed by progressive administrators to silence all speech they disagree with,” DePaul’s YAF chapter said in a statement.

“Make no mistake, any security concerns we face on campuses are 100 percent incited by the censorious, intolerant Left,” the statement said, in part. “If DePaul does not reverse its decision to ban Ben, it must immediately remove any claim to support free speech and expression from its website and marketing materials or become a fraudulent laughingstock.”

DePaul recently banned gay conservative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos from returning to speak on campus after officials determined his “inflammatory” rhetoric during his last appearance created a “hostile environment” on campus.

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