Conservative political commentator Michael Knowles made a return to campus Monday evening, drawing an audience of political supporters inside the O’Hara Student Center and a crowd of pro-LGBTQ+ ralliers outside.
About 150 students and community members listened to Knowles speak about political violence, the flaws of liberalism and transgender people while about 75 people protested outside the event and marched down Fifth Avenue. Event attendees said they appreciated the open political discussion, while some ralliers criticized the University allowing Knowles to speak on campus.
Knowles previously visited Pitt in April 2023, when the College Republicans hosted a debate about “transgenderism” between him and center-right YouTuber and journalist Brad Polumbo. A crowd of protesters outside the event rallied against it, and two people were arrested for setting off smoke bombs and a homemade firework, injuring multiple police officers.
This year, Pitt Divest From Apartheid and Trans Action Building Pittsburgh led a rally against Knowles outside the event. Students and community members waved transgender pride flags and chanted outside the O’Hara Student Center across a barricade lined with officers and event attendees waiting to enter.
Oliver Rosen, a sophomore biochemistry and English writing major, was a senior in high school debating where to go to college when Knowles first visited campus in 2023. Rosen said he initially didn’t want to attend Pitt because of the event but was swayed by the community protest response.
“[That event] made me not want to come to Pitt, and then I saw a bunch of people stand up and protest and be like, ‘This is not who we are as a community.’ That made me want to go to Pitt, and made me see that this is a place where I could find a home and a community,” Rosen said.
Julia Cassidy, a sophomore political science major and current president of College Republicans at Pitt who attended the event, said social media posts she saw from the protest against Knowles’ 2023 visit while in high school made her “nervous” to enter the campus political environment. Now, she said she finds support among her clubmates and feels safe to voice her opinion at Pitt.
“The political climate has been simmering down,” Cassidy said, “and we feel that we won’t be put in as much violent danger as the last time.”
Jillian Reeve, a sophomore bioscience and German major and transgender student who attended the rally, said she believed having Knowles speak at the University could negatively influence prospective students’ decisions to come to Pitt.
“I don’t like the idea that someone could [visit] Pitt on a day like today and think that everyone at Pitt supports someone like Michael Knowles coming and talking about the things he comes and talks about,” Reeve said. “At the end of the day, a speaker at the University does end up portraying a certain amount of their views on the school.”
Rosen said he wished the University would show more open support of trans and LGBTQ+ students.
“There’s been pushes for a long time to have a [physical] office for LGBT+ members of the community, and that still doesn’t exist,” Rosen said.
Cassidy praised the University for aiding them in hosting Knowles by conducting security walkthroughs and ensuring the general safety of the event. In a statement last week, the University said it does not endorse Knowles but has a First Amendment obligation to allow him to speak on campus.
“We’ve been in communication with them since the beginning of February and they’ve been there and ready to help us every step of the way,” Cassidy said. “They’ve asked us what we hope to get out of the event and made sure this is a productive event to avoid the violence that could potentially occur.”
Luis Boulingui, a junior neuroscience major who attended Knowles’ talk, said he is a former Democrat who recently declared himself an independent after being “awakened” by Daily Wire political commentators like Knowles. He said the increasing presence of faith in his life altered his political views.
“Being a progressive sounds better, being a liberal sounds better in the name, you know, liberty,” Boulingi said. “But I realized those ideas don’t stick with me. I couldn’t reconcile being on the left and also upholding my Christian values.”
Knowles began by speaking about the differences he sees between political violence on both sides of the political spectrum. While political violence occurs on both sides, he said, left-wing political violence occurs more frequently, and left-wing politicians approve it.
Knowles cited the Capitol riot on January 6 as an example of right-wing political violence but said he believed the violence on that day was “overexaggerated.”
“They took selfies with lecterns and they took photos with silly hats, and it was a very terrible day,” Knowles said. “When the dust cleared on January 6, how many people were killed due to political violence? The answer is one. It was a right-winger who was killed by a trigger happy cop. That’s your great right-wing insurrection.”
A bipartisan Senate report concluded that seven people died in connection to the Capitol riot, with four being protesters in the crowd. One protester, Ashli Babbitt, was shot and killed by a Capitol officer while attempting to breach the House chamber, and three protesters died from nonviolent causes during the riot. Four officers who responded to the Capitol died by suicide within seven months of the riot.
As examples of left-wing political violence, Knowles pointed to a Capitol bombing by a former Harvard professor in 1915, the 1954 shooting in the House chambers by four Puerto Rican nationalists and the 1983 U.S. Senate bombing.
“Three attacks on the Capitol that involved explosives rather than horn hats which inflicted real damage on the Capitol — all carried out by leftists,” Knowles said. “Political violence is not an exclusively left-wing phenomenon, but it is a distinctly left-wing phenomenon.”
Following the talk, Kenny Zhou, a first-year urban studies and Russian major and self-identified leftist, said he believes Knowles was “cherry-picking” violent actions committed by left-wing political actors.
“I think the right really exaggerates political violence on the left,” Zhou said. “There’s a lot of political violence on the right too. They overlook things like the Charlottesville Rally, where they were holding tiki torches and shouting hateful rhetoric.”
Knowles shifted towards transgender rights in the country — a topic he has been criticized on by prominent political advocacy organizations. Knowles previously said “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely,” adding during Monday’s talk that there is no clear explanation of “how it works.”
“Is the claim that some men were born in the wrong bodies? Or is the claim that one’s identity has nothing to do with one’s body? Or is the claim that identity has so much to do with one’s body, one must mutilate one’s body, one must go on puberty blockers and castrate oneself at age six?” Knowles said.
Morgan Swartz, a Highland Park resident and trans community member, said he was concerned Knowles’ rhetoric about the transgender community could have effects on local policy.
“[Knowles has] said so many things that are so hurtful, which influence politicians to change policy that affects my life,” Swartz said. “I just want to live my life as a trans person. I want to be able to get married and have a normal life and have a job and survive, and he is taking away that right for no reason.”
