In a campus event Nov. 18, Maine State Rep. Laurel Libby, a Republican, drew an audience with varied political viewpoints as she gave a talk focused on free speech, Charlie Kirk’s assassination and her advocacy against transgender inclusion in women’s sports.
The talk, titled “Fair Play, Free Speech,” was hosted by Northeastern’s College Republicans club in collaboration with the Leadership Institute, a national non-profit that provides resources and training to future conservative leaders. Libby’s presentation at Northeastern was one stop on The Leadership Institute’s “Free to Speak Campus Tour,” which invites conservative leaders to speak at college campuses across the country.
The crowd was made up of around 28 students — some of whom supported Libby’s politics and others who did not.
“When [Northeastern College Republicans] saw so many people coming in from the other side, we were very excited,” said Athena Lebron, a third-year health sciences and business administration combined major and social chair for the Northeastern College Republicans. “We definitely think that free speech on both sides is important and being civil and having good conversation is something we are super passionate about.”
Libby began her presentation by asking the room which Constitutional right they feel is most important. Many students said the First Amendment.
“So, tonight I’m going to be talking about free speech, but it’s in the context of the practical, not just the theoretical, because the fact is that free speech and the First Amendment is under attack in America today, and I’m going to tell you guys some stories to illustrate that,” Libby said.
She discussed how she became civically engaged in her youth and later ran for a seat in Maine’s State Legislature in 2020.
“I looked around my state and I thought, this really isn’t the state that I was born and raised in. I don’t recognize it. And if I want the state where my kids grow up to be the state where I remember being raised to be that state, I’m gonna have to do something about it,” Libby said.
Libby referenced the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, as an example of an attack on the First Amendment.
“The fact is the assassination of Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10 shows the natural inclusion of that sort of ideology where words are dangerous, where freedom of speech could lead to freedom of thought,” Libby said.
She likened the shock she felt upon first hearing about Kirk’s death to her reaction to 9/11.
“I think that a lot of us here in this room probably have a similar memory for when Charlie Kirk was assassinated, silenced for his exercise of free speech,” Libby said. “That’s a moment that you’ll remember, like I remember 9/11, for the rest of your life.”
Libby drew national attention in February after she was censured by her state legislature for posting a photo on Facebook of a transgender individual who was competing in the women’s division of a high school track state championship. This censure prohibited Libby from voting in the Maine House unless she apologized for her post. She refused to apologize and was censured for four months.
In the original post, Libby wrote, “Another day, another instance of an unremarkable biological male athlete (who couldn’t win against other males) dominating girls’ sports.”
Transgender individuals, specifically transgender women, competing in sports has been a hot-button issue for Libby, who believes her voice and the voices of those who agree with her have been censored.
“The stakes were simply too high to apologize. Girls [were] seeing someone stand up for them, many of them seeing someone stand up for them for the first time, if their coaches or their parents are not doing it,” Libby said. “The truth is that right now in America, we see that when a policy idea is not a winning idea, the opposition tries to silence it through fear, intimidation or silencing. And that is exactly what happened in my case. And if we tolerate that, then that’s the final result. ”
Libby was censured on the grounds that she violated the Maine Legislative Code of Ethics by posting the name and unblurred photo of a minor. She took her case to the Supreme Court, which overturned the Maine House of Representatives’ censure and reinstated her right to vote in the Maine House and participate in debates while the case is pending.
When presented with an opportunity by a member of the audience to expand on her actions during the Q&A portion of the event, Libby said she was standing up for women’s rights.
“This young [person] participated in a public event, in a public setting, in a very public way that was known it would draw attention,” Libby said referring to the transgender woman who won first place in the pole vault. “If you choose to participate in a public state championship, when you are a boy, and you are participating in a girls state championship, you can count on that drawing attention. Sharing a public photo with first names only is not doxxing.”
Tobias Roberts, a fourth-year civil engineering major and a member of Northeastern’s chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America who attended the event, disagreed with Libby’s perspective on the post.
“Being in a public high school does not give an elected official, someone with an incredibly high platform, [permission] to just display your image and spread that. And reality is, the attacks on trans people in America [have] been increasing due to this divisiveness in our nation,” Roberts said during an interview with The Huntington News after the event. “And so by flagging an athlete in such a way that she did, it truly brings danger to [the athlete’s] family, her school district [and] to the people around her.”
This incident was not the first time that Libby’s actions have drawn widespread attention. In 2024, Libby went viral for a comment she made about a neo-Nazi group that held a demonstration in Maine.
“Let’s talk about the Nazis,” Libby said on the Maine House floor in April 2024. “I would like to know what they did that was illegal. I would like to know what they did, in detail, if folks would like to share, what they did that was wrong, that infringed on another person’s right. Holding a rally, and even holding a rally with guns, is not illegal.”
When asked by an audience member to clarify her comment during the Q&A, Libby said it was taken out of context.
Lebron said that she was happy with how the event turned out but frustrated about students who she said were being intentionally disruptive, which some attendees agreed with.
“I do think the one thing I was a little bit upset by was just how disrespectful some people from the other side were,” Lebron said in an interview with The Huntington News after the event. “There was several different things that they did, whether it was chewing chips to try and disrupt [Libby], laughing when she was talking about Charlie Kirk.”
Roberts said that Lebron misunderstood the intentions of the left-leaning or non-Republican participants.
“It’s never my intention, or anyone’s around me, to be disrespectful, especially during an event where we are trying to get opinions. We’re trying to understand the community and then get those opinions out there in order to make the community better,” Roberts said.
In an interview with The News following the event, Libby spoke further about the relationship between higher education institutions and the Trump administration, saying of the recent budget cuts to the Department of Education that she “support[s] decreasing bureaucracy as a whole.”
The meeting concluded with many attendees remarking afterward about the importance of bringing together people with different viewpoints.
“There were definitely opposing viewpoints present, which is awesome to have. You want to always be cognizant of what other people are thinking and where other standpoints are in political spheres,” said Will Stuart, a fourth-year environmental science and sustainability sciences major. “I loved hearing all the different questions people had, and getting to learn more about other people’s viewpoints.”
Bowen Rivera and Will Holloway contributed reporting.
