Pramila Jayapal urges student groups to bring Hasan Piker to speak on campus after UW canceled him

Jayapal, the chairman of the Progressive Caucus and a UW alumna, publicly defended Piker’s planned appearance and said she had raised concerns about the cancellation directly with university officials.

https://twitter.com/RepJayapal/status/2087957644271325208?s=20

“As a Member of the Judiciary Committee, I have been absolutely clear that free speech is a Constitutional right that we must all stand up and protect,” Jayapal wrote on X.

"I have been communicating my concerns about the cancellation of the Hasan Piker event directly to the University, and they have informed me that they are doing an internal review to ensure this never happens again.”

Jayapal then encouraged another route for bringing Piker to UW. “I encourage student groups who want to hear from Mr. Piker to work with the University to ensure that they can proceed.”

Her reference to student groups is significant because Piker himself compared his cancellation to campus controversies involving conservative speakers Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro.

“If this had happened to Charlie Kirk, or if this had happened to Ben Shapiro, this would be the number one news story on Fox News for a month,” Piker said after UW canceled his appearance. But the comparison left out an important distinction: Kirk and Shapiro were commonly invited onto college campuses by student organizations rather than being selected as university-hosted speakers by academic departments or official lecture programs.

Piker’s appearance, by contrast, had been organized through UW’s Office of Public Lectures and sponsored by the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies and Graduate School.

Jayapal’s encouragement of “student groups” may therefore point Piker supporters toward the same model traditionally used to host controversial political speakers on campuses: a student organization sponsoring an appearance rather than the university itself.

UW abruptly canceled “An Evening with Hasan Piker,” which had been scheduled for January 2027 as part of its Speaker Series, after reviewing how the event was organized. “The University of Washington is dedicated to the free exchange of ideas, including on controversial topics and involving provocative speakers,” UW said.

The university said the review determined that “the process for organizing this event did not meet the necessary level of rigor for University-hosted events in the Speaker Series.” UW said it would update its procedures but has not specified exactly what failed during the approval process.

The controversy has also raised a separate question over why Piker was booked as a university-hosted speaker in the first place. Piker said after the cancellation that UW professor Daniel Bessner personally invited him. “Daniel Bessner invited me to UW. I was like, sure, I’ll do it,” Piker said. Bessner is the Anne H.H. and Kenneth B. Pyle Associate Professor in American Foreign Policy at UW’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, one of the university units sponsoring the appearance. Bessner previously served as a foreign policy adviser to Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign.

Sources familiar with internal tensions at the Jackson School said some activist faculty have increasingly viewed UW administrators as “selling out” or “caving” as university leadership has attempted to restore order following years of violent campus activism.

According to those sources, inviting Piker was viewed by some faculty activists as part of an effort to push the university back toward a more confrontational political posture, with some seeing themselves as part of “the resistance” to university leadership.

Sources also questioned why organizers planned to use an expensive off-campus venue despite UW possessing large event spaces of its own, raising concerns that organizers may have been attempting to avoid additional scrutiny from senior university administrators.

UW previously told The Ari Hoffman Show that the Office of Public Lectures selected its speakers independently, and that executive university leadership did not provide input into those selections. The university also said Piker was set to receive a “nominal honorarium and travel reimbursement” from Office of Public Lectures endowments rather than state funds. Nevertheless, the fact that employees of a taxpayer-supported public university arranged the appearance drew scrutiny given Piker’s record.

Piker became notorious after saying “America deserved 9/11,” later characterizing the terrorist attack as “backlash” for American foreign policy. He has also called Hamas the “lesser of two evils” compared to Israel, described the terrorist organization as “1,000 times” better than Israel, and called Orthodox Jews “inbred.” Piker has also called the Republican Party the “biggest domestic terrorist” organization and the “biggest terrorist internationally.”

Jayapal’s sweeping defense of Piker’s ability to appear at UW also contrasts with her own previous statements about speech she considers hateful. In an earlier social media post, Jayapal wrote, “Hate speech is not ‘free speech.’ It is harmful and threatening.” She added that Facebook “has the power to take down hateful groups” and “should.”

Jayapal is now invoking free-speech principles on behalf of a speaker who has called Orthodox Jews “inbred,” praised Hamas in comparison with Israel and repeatedly made inflammatory statements involving Israel, Jews and his political opponents.

Following UW’s cancellation, Piker blamed pro-Israel and Jewish groups for political pressure, claiming the university received “a barrage of botted emails” and “probably got a boss call.”

He also accused Democrats of participating in “censorship once again at the behest and the direction of Israel.”

Piker has made similar allegations before. After claiming British authorities barred him from entering the United Kingdom, he said, “Israel advocacy organizations have unbelievable amounts of power over what even the United Kingdom has to say and do.”

British Jewish organizations had urged authorities to block his entry, citing comments involving Hamas, Hezbollah, Zionism and Orthodox Jews that they characterized as antisemitic or supportive of extremism. Piker has denied being antisemitic.