By: Lulu Stracher ’17

Never would I have thought I would be on Tomi Lahren’s side, let alone defending her. If you don’t know Tomi Lahren by name, you would definitely recognize her voice. The 24-year-old conservative commentator rose to fame after her diatribe against President Obama’s response to a 2014 mass shooting of a military base in Chattanooga, Tennessee, declaring it the result of “radical Islam.” On her show, “Tomi,” broadcasted on Glenn Beck’s network, The Blaze, Lahren has referred to the Black Lives Matter movement as “the new KKK” and has proudly stated that she “doesn’t see color.”
When I watch her viral videos, I often develop a headache and become so frustrated that I have to turn my computer off. So when I read that her show was suspended for a week and then cancelled, my first reaction was joy. I was glad that her views, which I vehemently oppose and sometimes find outright despicable, would no longer reach such a wide audience.
But when I read about the reasoning for her departure, my reaction shifted. Lahren was kicked off the air because on a March 17 taping of “The View” Lahren proudly announced that she was pro choice, saying, “I can’t sit here and be a hypocrite and say ‘I’m for limited government, but I think that the government should decide what women do with their bodies.’”
Glenn Beck is the reason for Lahren’s departure. He’s one of many rich, white, conservative males who rail against young coddled liberals and their ‘safe spaces’ and “trigger warnings,” but was so triggered by Lahren’s one public display of a liberal position that he removed her from his network.
Despite the fact that I disagree with almost every single thing Lahren says on her show, she shouldn’t have been kicked off the air simply because her pro-choice beliefs don’t fit inside the package that Glenn Beck wants her to be in.
The fault in this situation doesn’t fall under Lahren — she did nothing wrong for practicing her freedom of speech. The fault in this situation lands under Glenn Beck — and similar conservative pundits who punished Lahren for her valid and popular beliefs.
It is now clear that Beck didn’t hire Lahren to actually use her platform to promote her own views and values, but to advance his own agenda — and when she didn’t fit that agenda, he no longer found her worthy or profitable, despite the fact that her statement on abortion caused me and a lot of other liberals to gain more respect for her.
Lahren is talented, fierce and will not be fading from the public spotlight soon. This liberal wants her back, even if I’ll groan when she does return. No one deserves to be silenced for going against the status quo.