The College Republicans of Saint Louis University invited Scott Brown to speak on campus but the school kept the event from happening by incorrectly citing a ridiculous rule about their tax exempt status.

There is a dangerous double standard for free speech happening on American campuses right now. I cannot understand for the life of me why the College Republicans backed down.

Eric Owens of The Daily Caller reports.

Insufferable St. Louis U. bureaucrat invents new way to screw over Republican students

Saint Louis University banned Scott Brown from speaking this week at an on-campus event sponsored by the school’s College Republicans chapter.

School officials claimed to fear that allowing the former Massachusetts senator to appear could trigger an IRS investigation and jeopardize SLU’s status as a tax-exempt institution, reports PoliticsMo, a website devoted to the state’s political scene.

“I get there yesterday and said, ‘we all set?’” Brown told the website. “They said, ‘the administration wouldn’t let you on campus, we couldn’t get a room.’”

Consequently, student organizers were forced to relocate the event to a restaurant several blocks away from campus.

Todd Foley, an assistant director with SLU’s student involvement center staff, explained the private Jesuit school’s imaginative, paranoid reasoning in an email obtained by PoliticsMo.

“The University has determined that Scott Brown is considered a candidate for public office and therefore falls under the provisions of the Tax Code from the IRS regarding educational institutions hosting candidates for public office.” Foley wrote. “His appearance here would be a violation of our Tax Exempt status as a 501(c)3.”

Brown was in St. Louis as part of a three-city Missouri tour hosted by the state’s College Republicans. On Wednesday, he spoke at the University of Missouri-Columbia on Wednesday. On Thursday, he is scheduled to speak at Missouri State University in Springfield.

The former senator is not currently a candidate for any public office. However, Foley said, it’s conceivable that he may run for some office again one day, and that’s enough to outlaw the Republican’s appearance at a campus event.