'He Took a Punch for All of Us': How the Hayden Williams Attack Is Fueling a Trump Free Speech Move

President Trump is preparing to sign an executive order that would enforce free speech on campuses across the country – regardless of the political leanings of the speaker. Schools refusing to comply could lose federal research money. 

Speaking at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference, the President pointed to the attack on a conservative activist as a major reason why an executive order is necessary. 

"If they want our dollars, and we give it to them by the billions, they've got to allow people like Hayden (Williams) and many other great young people, and old people, to speak," said the President. 

"Free speech," he said. 

A protestor recently turned to violence against a young man named Hayden Williams as he recruited students for a conservative group at the University of California Berkeley. President Trump said Williams "took a hard punch in the face for all of us. Remember that. He took a punch for all of us, and we can never allow that to happen."

Neither Williams nor his attacker attends UC Berkeley – but his story is emblematic of an education system that critics say shuns conservative voices. At CPAC, the President trotted Williams up to the stage and presented him with the mic. 

"It's great that I'm being recognized," said Williams, "but there's so many conservative students across the country who are facing discrimination, harassment, and worse, if they dare to speak up on campus."
 
The president has threatened to withhold federal dollars from UC Berkeley before after protests against a planned speech by Milo Yiannopoulos, a conservative and openly-gay rabble-rouser, led the university to cancel his appearance there. 

In 2017, hundreds at Claremont McKenna College blocked entrances to keep attendees from listening to a conservative writer critical of the Black Lives Matter movement. 

Earlier that year, students at Middlebury College, chanting "your message is hatred, we cannot tolerate it," stonewalled an appearance by the author of a book linking socioeconomics to race and intelligence. 
 
The president's free speech push comes as conservatives fear constitutional rights are in peril. At CPAC, Jerry Falwell, Jr., president of Liberty University, said "mainstream universities have become so intolerant of conservative viewpoints."
 
In his defense of Christian values-based education, Falwell depicted the product of a liberal-leaning university system. 
 
"We end up with politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who have only been taught one side," he said. 
 
The freshman congresswoman from New York has become a symbol of a growing socialist wing of the Democratic Party. 
 
Regent University's Stephen Perry told CBN News, "Just last week I had two students that came in and they were asking me, 'Hey is there someway we could get Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to come to campus and speak?'" 

Perry, an interim dean at Regent, said the Christian school in Virginia is open to liberal speakers. 
 
"The university has in the past extended invitations to many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle," he said.
 
Perry supports the president's planned action on free speech, but with caution, adding that, "with a different president they could certainly say well, you're not eligible for federal research funding."
 
Regent does not accept federal funding, but Perry says its students could face other restrictions under the president's planned executive action if a member of another party held the White House.

"Potentially a problem down the road is there could be some limitations on students getting federal money to help with tuition payments," said Perry.