Hampshire College on Wednesday canceled a student-booked speaking event on "women empowerment and the second amendment" a mere two hours before its conservative centerpiece was to take the stage.



Antonia Okafor, a two-time Obama voter come gun rights activist, national campus speaker and Fox talking head, vocally decried the decision on social media and during a Periscope livestream from a Western Massachusetts hotel room last night.



"What really happened is this," she wrote on Facebook. "Someone failed to do a Google search on me and then started freaking out once professors, students and the media started calling in demanding that I don't speak tonight."

She added, "They caved."



A college statement explaining the cancellation said Hampshire "did not cancel the speech because of the speaker, the subject of the speech, or the content."



"The student application (to host a speaker) was not sufficiently complete," the statement continued. "It lacked the necessary details we require in advance of any event, particularly one that might draw large audiences and intense debate, so we can allot the appropriate resources to staff and support the event."



Mount Holyoke College student and conservative activist Kassy Dillon was planning to host Okafor at her school Thursday night, and when Hampshire College medical student Rahim Hirani heard this he communicated with her and booked his own Okafor speaking event, according to the livestream, which both Dillon and Hirani participated in.



The Mount Holyoke Okafor event is still on, scheduled for 7 p.m. in Cleveland Hall.



Hirani said the college provided him a completely different explanation for the cancellation via email, which deemed the subject matter "controversial" and said there wasn't enough time to make needed security preparations.



"As a part of liberal arts education, I think it's really important that people get to know both sides to hear both sides and they can shape their arguments on the basis of that," said Hirani.



Okafor and Dillon almost immediately began a #HampshireHatesFreedom hashtag on Twitter, and objections from the right began on social media instantly.







Okafor, who has made waves by advocating for guns on college campuses, offered a near-incoherent political analogy explaining why she thinks people are afraid to seize power through gun ownership.



"People are saying, you know, you could be state (representative) or you could be president, and people are saying, 'You know what? But when it comes to power, I'm going to choose state (representative). Why would I choose power. Why would I choose, you know, presidency when I can do as many things as I can possibly do.' That's what being able to have a firearm allows you to do."



She said this analogy was going to be the crux of her Wednesday night address.