Texas A&M University is making changes to its policy governing who can speak on campus after a December 2016 visit by the imminently punchable white supremacist Richard Spencer caused a mild uproar.
According to CNN, the policy change means that all speakers moving forward would have “to have on-campus sponsorship by a recognized organization for external speakers.” A spokeswoman for the university, Amy Smith, expressed concern about “fringe groups and hate groups” coming to campus in order to cause the kind of disruption Spencer’s appearance did.
“As one of the stewards for protecting and enhancing the brand, this is particularly troubling to me as the influx of these outside groups may connote to your viewers an environment of acceptance by our campus when none are actually our students or faculty,” she said to CNN.
Spencer’s December 2016 appearance was not sanctioned by the university or any of the organizations on campus. It was arranged by the improbably-named Preston Wiginton, a Texas A&M alum who the Texas Tribune refers to as a “local white nationalist.”
Addressing a crowd of about 400 people, most of whom were there in protest, Spencer said things like “At the end of the day, America belongs to white men” and “This is our goddamn country!”while protests continued outside the venue. Spencer is not the only racist provocateur to cause trouble on campus. In February, unctuous alt-right asshole Milo Yiannapoulous’s appearances at both UC Davis and UC Berkeley were cancelled due to massive student protests.
Indeed, it may have been these very protests that caused Texas A&M to revise their policy. Smith told CNN that A&M President Michael Young was told by other universities about “lessons learned” in regards to allowing hate speech slinging idiots to appear on campus.
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