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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday February 15 2018, @03:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-cost-of-free-speech dept.

From Cleveland.com:

CINCINNATI (AP) -- Kent State University, facing the threat of a lawsuit, reiterated on Friday that it cannot accommodate a request to allow white nationalist Richard Spencer to speak in early May as part of his campus tour.

The university, which is based in Kent but has regional campuses elsewhere in the state, said it had responded to attorney Kyle Bristow reaffirming its earlier response that no suitable space is available for Spencer to speak between April 30 and May 12.

Bristow had told Kent State it had until the end of business Friday to agree to rent space at an "acceptable date and time" or face a lawsuit. Several other schools, including Ohio State University and the University of Cincinnati, are in litigation over Spencer.

Tour organizer Cameron Padgett wanted Spencer to speak at Kent State on the May 4 anniversary of Ohio National Guard shootings that killed four students during anti-war protests in 1970. The university said early May is too busy with activities around the end of the academic year.

Bristow said last year that Spencer planned to speak March 14 on the University of Cincinnati campus, but the university said there was no contract in place, and the two sides are now in a legal standoff over the university's demand for a security fee of nearly $11,000.


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday February 15 2018, @06:03PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday February 15 2018, @06:03PM (#638336)

    One thing to be aware of is that the university does everything it can to try to make the May 4 commemorations as non-political as they can be. For instance, the victims of the 1970 shooting that were random students on their way to class are given exactly the same attention as the protesters who were shot. They try to avoid statements about whether or not the Vietnam War or the invasion of Cambodia were justified. They also try to avoid discussions about whether or not the shooting was justified - for example, Alan Canfora, who was shot on that day, still lives in Kent, and has been at the forefront of trying to prove that the Guardsmen were ordered to shoot people they knew were unarmed, does not get a speaking slot to try to make his point.

    So I'd be against Spencer speaking, not just because of the circus he's likely to bring with him, but also because his normal focus on race relations has absolutely nothing to do with what that event is about. A bunch of mostly white people shot another bunch of mostly white people, possibly while under the orders of yet more white people, in an event which didn't really discuss race relations in any substantial way.

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