Three days have past since the initial blog posting from Milwaukee Sheriff David A. Clarke, Jr. expressing his views toward the University of New Haven through accusations that a “predominantly white college disinvites black man to show they care about minorities.” This is what we know:

For starters, anyone who attends the University of New Haven or knows anything about the institution knows that it is not a “predominately white college.” The university is ranked as one of the top three most diversified colleges in the state of Connecticut and prides themselves for the vast makeup of different cultures that makeup their campus community.

Sheriff Clarke says the reason he was disinvited to speak at the 25th annual Markel Symposium sponsored by the Henry C. Lee Institute was because of his opposing views on #BlackLivesMatter as he believes the movement is hate group with “cult-like demands.”

U.N.H. senior Brian Sharnick established an online petition to rally support from students, faculty, and alumni to bring Sheriff Clarke to the university so he can receive a formal apology – the petition as of Saturday afternoon has accumulated 2,946 signatures. According to his Twitter, Sharnick plans to keep fighting for Sheriff Clarke because he “deserves an apology in the least.”

University administration has spoken out against the Sheriff’s blog post saying that as an institute of higher education that they do not repress freedoms of speech. According to administration, the reason that they disinvited him was due to the expense that was being asked to host Sheriff Clarke. He wanted to be flown in first class, stay in a presidential suite, and be driven around in a blacked-out SUV during the duration of his stay, which would be cumulatively more than the cost of any other guest the symposium hosted.

President Kaplan has said that Sheriff Clarke was invited without any approval from the school.

Friday night, Sheriff Clarke published a blog post with screenshots of the email correspondence between his offices and Patrick Malloy, a senior lecturer at the university.

The emails clearly show how Malloy did invite Sheriff Clarke to speak at the university after showing an interest and the execution of the planning process, which Sheriff Clarke previously blogged never happened.

Sheriff Clarke does not believe the university’s claims of disinviting him to the conference was due to financial reasoning, but his stances. He is set that the retraction of initiation was due to his dispiriting views on the #BlackLivesMatter movement, which is now leading him to spread his belief that U.N.H., like many other colleges and universities, are preventing students from thinking on their own.

“Now these colleges and universities are moving toward this, this totalitarian existence where they have they have no tolerance for anybody else’s views other than their own,” said Clarke. “And, I find that fascinating that, you know, instead of being institutions of learning that encourage students to challenge each other and to form their own viewpoints, it’s now as if there is some central power that is going to tell us what to believe and that if you think anything outside of that, what you are suppose to believe, you are ostracized.”

Malloy released a statement on Friday apologizing for the incident while taking full responsibility. He says when corresponding with the university on the sheriff’s demands that he “misrepresented” what was being asked.

“We decided not to finalize his arrangements to visit campus when it was determined his appearance could potentially become politically polarizing in light of the imminent presidential election,” Malloy stated.

Another interesting point to raise is that the university rescinded their invitation to Sheriff Clarke on August 3. Sheriff Clarke did not bring any attention to it until October 5 via his blog, saying he is a very busy person and he forgot about it until he looked at his October calendar to see there was a block of free space.

The Charger Bulletin will continue to follow and provide updates on the developing story.

**The Charger Bulletin is an unbiased student-ran publication that is the news source for the University of New Haven**