Milo Yiannopoulos will speak at Cal Poly, a campus already tense from a string of racist incidents
Right-wing polemicist and incorrigible troll Milo Yiannopoulos brings his message back to the Golden State Thursday, speaking at California Polytechnic State University for the second time in two years.
This time, he鈥檚 joined by two fellow travelers from the broader alt-right/alt-lite internet landscape, Austen Fletcher and Carl Benjamin, the popular YouTube personality better known as Sargon of Akkad.
The trio鈥檚 visit comes at a bad time for Cal Poly. In the last few weeks, the school has endured a series of racist incidents, like a white fraternity brother who was聽. After that, another racist scandal at a different fraternity led the Cal Poly president to temporarily suspend all Greek activity.聽 flyers, along with racially charged graffiti and vandalism, have also been found lately around the campus. Yiannopoulos, who thrives on controversy and courts conflict in his writings and public appearances, may well be unfazed by the atmosphere. It won鈥檛 be the first time he鈥檚 tossed a match at a powder keg, and it鈥檚 unlikely to be the last.
But he and his co-panelists at the event were invited by the Cal Poly College Republicans, who have聽聽from a local paper, the San Luis Obispo聽Tribune. The editorial board on Tuesday published an open letter to the group, criticizing them for jeopardizing the safety of the student body and the reputation of the school. They argued in the letter that the club should have cancelled the event after the racist incidents darkened the mood on campus out of respect for their peers and their university. Instead, the board writes, they were 鈥渦nable to resist the impulse to 鈥榯rigger鈥� the snowflakes.鈥�
鈥淟ike elections,鈥� they wrote, 鈥渇ree speech has consequences.鈥�
The Cal Poly Republicans aren鈥檛 the only sponsors of the inauspicious event. They鈥檙e joined by the Cal Poly chapter of Turning Point USA, a conservative non-profit devoted to carving out more space for right-wing politics on campus. The organization聽聽recently for allegedly being more involved with elections than is legally permissible, and for what some former employees describe as a hostile work environment for minorities. Turning Point USA has worked with Yiannopoulos before, co-sponsoring his events at other universities around the country.聽聽
Yiannopoulos, Fletcher and Benjamin will be paneling a discussion on 鈥渇ake news鈥� 鈥� none are journalists. Yiannopoulos鈥� credentials on this topic include聽聽at infamous conspiracy mill Infowars, and a reputation for emulating President Trump and levelling the 鈥渇ake news鈥� charge at everything he doesn鈥檛 like 鈥斅�. Fletcher, who goes by the online handle 鈥淔leccas,鈥� uses his YouTube channel to broadcast videos where he interviews people he disagrees with politically and tries to make them look foolish. As for Benjamin, he deals primarily in the subjective realm of YouTube commentary, with a significant following of subscribers who presumably appreciate him for his opinions, not his expertise in journalism methodology and ethics.
Yiannopoulos has also been criticized for his personal ties to the racist 鈥渁lt-right.鈥� Though he denies holding white supremacist views himself,聽聽last October revealed that he repeatedly sought the input of white nationalists while a writer at Breitbart. Video also emerged of Yiannopoulos singing 鈥淎merica the Beautiful鈥� in a Texas bar in front of Nazi-saluting white nationalists, including Richard Spencer.
Likewise, Benjamin has been called聽聽and an聽聽by multiple news outlets. He rejects those characterizations, calling himself a 鈥渃lassical liberal.鈥� However, a recent聽Southern Poverty Law Center report聽revealed he has been a stepping stone for some white supremacists on the path to radicalization. The Right Stuff, an unapologetically racist, antisemitic blog founded by white supremacist Mike Peinovich, hosted a poll asking users who their biggest influence was in coming to the alt-right. Multiple respondents named Sargon of Akkad. And for someone who says he鈥檚 not a part of the alt-right, he鈥檚 been spending a lot of time with them lately. He鈥檚 appeared in videos with alt-right figures like Millennial Woes and Richard Spencer, giving those men a platform to reach his nearly 800,000 subscribers in the process.聽
Security spending for the Fake News panel may top $100,000,聽
Photo credit:聽David Middlecamp/The Tribune (of San Luis Obispo) via AP Images
