For some reason, Singaporean vlogger and teenage enfant terrible Amos Yee was invited to speak at Harvard. Yes, the Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
For another unknown reason, his scheduled speech at the Harvard College Open Campus Initiative (HCOCI) was unceremoniously canceled just 24 hours before the program, which was supposed to be conducted yesterday at 6:30pm (PST).
It would have been a big moment for the 18-year-old, if his talk had went on. It would have been his first public speaking event (at an Ivy League institution, no less) since he was granted asylum in the United States.
The filmmaker-turned-activist who served two jail terms in Singapore for hate speech had his wish granted by the US immigration court late September after 10 months in detention.
But without warning or detailed reasons, HCOCI canceled the event that had been titled “Jailed for Dissent”.
Our upcoming event with Amos Yee has been cancelled. Our apologies to those who were planning to attend.
— HCOCI (@harvardfree) November 12, 2017
“Non-violent opinion”
Taking to his YouTube channel to respond (his Facebook page was suspended temporarily for violating community standards), Yee said he believed that Harvard canceled his scheduled talk because of his dicey opinion on sexual age of consent laws. Namely, that they should be eliminated — which many have taken to be proof that Yee apparently supports pedophilia.
Expressing outrage over the decision, he stood his ground on his views, clarifying his beliefs to viewers. We’ll, uh, just let you read what he said.
“I feel that if a person below the age of 18 perfectly consents to having sex with an adult, he should be allowed to do it. And the adult who has sex with that person should not be sent to jail for it.
“I had thoughts that I wanted to have sex with 20-year-olds when I was 16. So why shouldn’t I be able to do it? And if I did do it, it does not at all make sense that legally, the 20-year-old that my 16-year-old self had sex with should go to prison for it?”
“Good point!” we like to imagine proud Alabaman and US Senate hopeful Roy Moore shouted somewhere when he read it.
He went on to state that many “misrepresented” his views and claimed that he promoted rape and child abuse — a claim he vehemently denied, asserting that he would “never promote violence to anyone”.
Yee also believes this was the same reason he was banned from the Mythopoeic Society Conference (MythCon) last month, where he was also initially invited to attend for free.
“[T]his really goes against the spirit of free speech that MythCon and the Harvard College Open Campus Initiative claimed that they want to cultivate,” Yee griped, puzzled that they were “completely discounting all the pro-human rights work that (he had) done”.
You can watch his entire tirade below if you want to:
