Riley Gaines says Penn State canceled her Real Women's Day speech, calls out school's hypocrisy

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Riley Gaines was set to speak at Penn State University on Tuesday for what she's dubbed "Real Women's Day."

Gaines has made a movement on social media to make Oct. 10 "Real Women's Day" - the date, in Roman numerals, is X/X, which is the chromosome pairing of biological females.

However, Gaines posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday that the school canceled her speech.

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Riley Gaines, American competitive swimmer, speaks before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at the Greenville Convention Center on Friday, June 2, 2023. (MCKENZIE LANGE/ Staff / USA TODAY NETWORK)

The former college swimmer, though, caught the university in its tracks, posting a video of Penn State president Neeli Bendapudi explaining that as a public university, the school is "bound by the First Amendment" to bring in speakers "that many will consider controversial, either because their views are not widely held or because a speaker espouses ideas that are actively hateful."

Bendapudi also provided a second "moral" reason.

"Higher education has fought against censorship, believing that the best way to combat bad ideas is with better ideas…" she says in the video. "Restricting the speech of one group or individual jeopardizes everyone's rights because the same laws or regulations used to silence bigots can be used to silence you."

Bendapudi later explained that the school "supports" those who wish to protest against those speakers.

With that video in her pocket, Gaines called out the school and Bendapudi for seemingly an about-face.

Riley Gaines addresses the crowd at Madison Public Library in Madison, Alabama, Saturday,