Tonight at the United States College campuses have become an angry reflection of a dividing country. On this night, police and protesters are out in force at the University of Utah. All because of this baby-faced 33-year-old father of two. I mean, let's be real about this. Look at me. Do I look like a physical threat to anybody? Do I seem like a physical threat to anybody? The last time I was in a fight, I was 14 years old. I was two years younger than everybody else in my high school class, and I was getting my ass kicked. Ben Shapiro is editor-in-chief of the conservative Daily Wire and host of a popular political podcast, downloaded millions of times a week. Is that good for America or just good for President Trump? He's now at the center of a nationwide debate about whether conservative voices are being stifled by protesters. On American College campuses. You don't miss your friends at the end! Don't be stupid! No take it, Jacob! Just today at the University of Florida, tensions flaring during an event featuring the white nationalist Richard Spenschitz. In February at the University of Berkeley, former Breitbart commentator Milo Yiannopoulos shut down after protesters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails. And just last month when Ben Shapiro spoke at the University of Berkeley, local authorities spent more than half a million dollars on security. It's amazing they had to essentially lock that place down for you. And the headlines were nuts. I mean the headlines like, Berkeley braces for Shapiro visit. Really? Was I the one who was going to be smashing ATMs? Indeed, just three hours before he's supposed to take the stage at seven o'clock here in Utah. Shapiro says there are reports of possible violence. I'm hearing some rumors that there may be some people who tried to ring weapons tonight which would just be ridiculous and awful. I want to be killed at my lectures. A fellow conservative podcast host claims he's captured this undercover video of self-described antifa members allegedly handing out knives and talking about luring fans of Ben Shapiro to their car where they allegedly had guns. This is insanity. Shapiro says this all speaks to a liberal hysteria on American campuses. So your view is this is political correctness Ron Namak? Yeah, I mean, it's the furthest extension of political correctness. Then when you say something that it's not just me that's agreeing with you, it is me destroying your identity as a human being in a way that is akin to violence. Let me just read you from the statement that the folks who want to shut you down, put out. They said Ben Shapiro has openly called transgender people mentally ill. He portrays the great gay rights movement as a conspiracy to root out God-based institutions. He has recently defended conversion therapy with which is nothing short of abuse. Okay, so there are a bunch of things that are just not true there. I am unaware of any time that I have ever defended conversion therapy as such so that it's effective because I don't see the evidence that it's effective. What about this idea that you you call transgender people mentally ill? I do say the transgenderism is a mental illness because it's gender dysphoria. It's a psychological disorder. So that's not an insult to people who suffer from psychological disorders. You are not doing a service to people who are suffering from a mental disorder to humor them by suggesting that their mental disorder is reflected in objective reality. It is important to note that the American Psychological Association does not define being transgender as a mental illness. A gender dysphoria diagnosis only applies if an individual experiences significant distress. It's actually a natural phenomenon and their committee suicide because they are depressed because people are mistreating them. I'm not for mistreatment but I don't think that me suggesting that you're not a woman is mistreatment of you. Whether or not you agree with Shapiro, whether or not you think he's engaged in hate speech, there is little doubt that his speech is protected by the First Amendment. They want that a Jewish guy come to a college campus and say what he wants to say. That's where I'm from America, that's ridiculous. At just past six o'clock and with the protests heating up, Professor David Rugobi, who teaches a class on freedom of expression here, tells us that many college students today do not understand that speech is protected unless it directly incites a violence. This is a public institution, it's a government entity, they have to guarantee the free speech rights of everyone including Shapiro. We find the leader of that group that has vowed to shut tonight's event down who makes a startling admission. I don't think he should speak. But that doesn't really comport with the First Amendment. I don't care. You don't care. Why not? I don't think that's a relevant document right now. The Constitution is not a relevant document. This thinking may help explain the increasingly violent protests against conservative speakers on campus. By shortly after 7 p.m. here at the University of Utah, Ben Shapiro is backstage ready to go on after his security team sneaked him into the building. One irony is that while he's hated by many on the left, he's also hated by the self-described alt-right. I've been very, very outspoken against the alt-right. I've said the alt-right is a garbage movement composed of garbage ideas that has nothing to do with constitutional conservatism. Shapiro is also fiercely critical of Donald Trump. And he publicly quit his last job at Breitbart News when a female colleague was allegedly man-handled by Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. And Shapiro thought Breitbart failed to have her back. And I quit under very public circumstances because Breitbart had been hurting itself into a Trump propaganda arm in the alt-right really liked President Trump but then candided Trump. What kind of blowback have you received? Let me decide from the 7400 odd anti-Semitic tweets that I received from March to November of last year. You know, death threats in the mail, death threats on my phone, death threats at my business phone. Which is why Shapiro finds it hard to believe that protesters call him a white supremacist. He is right to rebel, let Shapiro fall in hell! That is the stupidest thing I have legitimately ever heard. I keep hearing this and I keep wondering, was the Yamaha that gave it away? Shapiro has been interested in politics for as long as he can remember. I found a paper from when I was like 10 or 11 talking about the Clinton impeachment so I assumed that I was into it even then. Shapiro went on to start his own nationally syndicated column at age 17. His parents had to sign the contract for him. He graduated UCLA at age 20, put out two books by age 21, and graduated Harvard Law at age 23. Looking back. As Shapiro takes the stage in Utah, he immediately becomes clear that all of his time on elite campuses apparently did little to temper his conservative views, in particular what he calls America's culture of victimization. On stage, he inserts himself into some of the most heated debates in our divided country from police shootings to the NFL kneeling controversy. Is racism real? Yeah, of course racism is real. But I don't think institutional racism is necessarily real. So yes, of course there are racists and racist cops who shoot black guys for no reason should go to jail and they should throw away the key. But this idea that's put out there by these kind of broad statements about America being discriminatory racist country, I don't know how that helps anything and I don't think it's actually true. Isn't that to ignore our history? It's inarguable that slavery existed. A hundred percent Jim Crow. Yes, you want to talk about Jim Crow and slave? Of course. The question is what is the remedy now? Is the remedy now to blame people who are living today who had nothing to do with Jim Crow or slavery? I didn't hold slaves, did you? As Shapiro holds forth inside the lecture hall outside, scuffles break out in the crowd. The hierarchy of victimhood goes something like this. If you're LGBT and kill, then we suggest that you are at the very top of the victimhood hierarchy and then black folks and then Hispanic folks and then women and then Jews and then Asians and then way down at the bottom white straight males. Did it ever strike you as somewhat off to be in a room kind of making light of victim culture and having this kind of hardy laughter and looking around and seeing that the vast majority of the faces are white? No, because I've said the exact same thing in front of faces that were not white. I know that you changed your message. You just said it seemed to resonate mostly with white people. I don't think that that's true. I mean, I think that I wish I were invited to more crowds that were more racially diverse. That'd be great. No one got hurt tonight, but two protesters did get arrested. Even as a man caught in the white hot center of the madness that is American politics today, he says he is optimistic. Were it just divided and venomous time in this country? You're right in the middle of it. Do you have any optimism that it'll get better anytime soon? Yeah, I think there's going to be a backlash. There's going to be a strong backlash for people who are tired of it and want to stand up for basic rights that we can all agree on. For Nightline, this is Dan Harris in Salt Lake City, Utah. Thank you.