Donald Trump hat stirs “freedom of expression” controversy at Calgary university

Hate speech or freedom of expression?

That’s the lesson being learned at one Calgary university after a video was shared on Facebook, showing a female student confronting a young man over wearing a Donald Trump hat to school.

The post is a little more than two minutes long and filmed in the halls of Mount Royal University.

Ian Soliterman didn’t know either student at the time but saw the young man being confronted and rushed to his defence, pressing record on his cell phone.

In the video, the female student demands the man take it off because she deserves to have a school that is a “safe place.”

“You’re not allowed to share hate language in a university,” she says. “Make America great again, means make America all for white people, no immigrants, no people with different sexual orientation.”

Soliterman can be heard defending the man, telling her that his wife is an immigrant, she responds by saying “that doesn’t matter.”

“Listen dude, like we are friends and I’ll level with you but you gotta take the hat off or I’m gonna write the President of the University and he’s gonna come talk to you because I already talked to him about this, it’s not allowed, it’s hate language on campus. You can deal with me or you can deal with David Docherty,” she said. “You can laugh but it’s so going to happen.”

“It’s not a hat, it’s so much more,” she added.

The video ends with someone snatching the hat from the student and his fellow classmates demanding that it be returned.

Security ends up getting involved.

Later on, the woman took to Facebook to explain her side of the story.

“Today I got into an altercation with a guy wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. I went up and asked him if he would take the hat off, explaining a university should be a safe space. It was impossible to communicate to him why wearing a hat in support of a movement grown on the seeds of racism, bigotry and exclusion of diversity (sexual and cultural) could make some people afraid.” she writes.

Soliterman tells Rogers Media he and the male student have since become fast friends.

“I am a Trump supporter myself, I do have a hat so I can see them from a distance, I know there’s a lot of joke hats but I looked up close and I did see this said ‘Make America Great Again’, I have never met a Trump fan in Calgary so it was great to see that, I ran up and gave him a ‘high 5’ and meanwhile this woman is just freaking out on him.”

“I’m like ‘whoa, whoa, wait a minute here, he’s wearing a hat and nothing doing anything wrong’, the guy, he’s not a very super vocal guy, he’s wearing a hat and this girl was just reaming him out, so I stepped it up and I took my video out just in case. She saw that I was recording and whatever happened after that was in the video.”

He says he’s been blown away by how quickly it’s blown up across social media, as of Thursday it’s been viewed almost half a million times.

“I’m glad that it was able to be exposed, nothing against the girl, but it’s great that it’s being exposed, just nationally and wherever 500,000 views have gone.”

Soliterman says he was at campus the next day and people were cheering, it continues to the focus of conversation on campus.

“The hat doesn’t say anything wrong, she took it wrong and I’m happy that he gets to wear what he wants to wear.”

Mount Royal University is commenting on the video without weighing in on the altercation.

In a statement, an official writes:

“We are aware of the post and will not comment on the specifics of this instance. Mount Royal University respects individuals who exercise their constitutionally-protected right to freedom of expression.”

660 NEWS did reach out to other individuals in the video, none of whom have returned our messages as of the publication of this article.

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