Clemson protesters call free speech 'garbage,' plan to shut down Milo event
Students at Clemson University are already planning protests months before Milo Yiannopoulos’ appearance on campus, and in the meantime are directing their vitriol at the students who invited him.
In fact, one student wants to “no platform” Yiannopoulos, presumably meaning he wants to prevent the alt-right provocateur from even speaking in the first place.
“Can we please shut him down,” Clemson student Ian Anderson pleaded on Twitter. “But I want to ideally no platform him,” he continued, adding that “a professor is getting me in touch with UC Irvine.”
After admitting that he is working with a professor to censor conservative voices on campus, Anderson then explains that UC Irvine “no platformed him [Yiannopoulos] successfully.”
However, Yiannopoulos’ appearance at UC Irvine actually went on without a glitch after members of the school’s College Republicans chapter passed out pacifiers to would-be protesters.
Then, when the school tried to suspend the CRs after members hinted at bringing Yiannopoulos back to campus, administrators were forced to walk back the suspension pending national outrage, enabling UCI CR president Ariana Rowlands to announce via Twitter that Yiannopoulos will be returning to UC Irvine in the fall.
Nonetheless, Anderson insists that “there’s no way in hell he’s coming near this school” before sarcastically calling for a “white power rally!”
Notably, Anderson was a member of a protest group that came to be known as the “Clemson Five,” which staged a nine-day sit-in on campus earlier this year ending with the arrest of all five members. Anderson and his peers refused to leave an administrative building on Clemson’s grounds until a list of seven demands was met, including a commitment to prosecute “defamatory speech.”
[RELATED: Clemson students challenge ‘Black Out’ protesters]
While plans for a protest are already in motion, Yiannopoulos will not be appearing on campus until October, when a free speech advocacy group known as “WeRoar” plans to host him.
[RELATED: Students petition Clemson to eliminate speech restrictions]
“Milo Yiannopoulos reminds us that the First Amendment is still the law of the land, including and especially at American colleges and universities,” WeRoar member Mitchell Gunter told Campus Reform. “Too many universities grovel to the leftist Thought Police and prohibit constitutionally-protected expression.”
Accordingly, Anderson openly mocked Gunter on his Twitter, calling him “fucking garbage” for believing in free speech.
“Fucking garbage ass people,” Anderson wrote. “Mitchell gunter [sic] and all the other ‘Free Speech’ shits don’t give one care about marginalized foilks [sic].”
[RELATED: Clemson student senator accused of racism for holding gun in campaign poster]
At least one other student echoed Anderson’s sentiments, calling WeRoar “fucking privileged white males” on a Clemson subreddit.
“We don’t need any more racist, sexist, xenophobic bigots here at Clemson. We already have enough,” the anonymous user continues. “I’ve already begun the protest planning—drums, whistles, posters, and chants.”
The user then proceeded to call for “fewer white people at Clemson, specifically fewer white males,” saying his protest will “blow this bigoted piece of shit [Yiannopoulos] and all of his racist followers off of campus.”
Another WeRoar member, Alexander Cullen, aptly noted that college students are “traumatized” by the mere notion of free speech.
“Milo is a cultural litmus test,” Cullen told Campus Reform, asking, “If he comes to your campus to express and exercise free thought and students at that school are traumatized by that, what does that say about the intellectual maturity on that campus?”
“College students are unable to emotionally cope with ideas that conflict with their own,” fellow WeRoar member Kyle Brady added. “This has created a progressive movement nation-wide to limit free speech. Whether it be through safe spaces or vague speech codes, millennials have begun to strip themselves of their own right to free speech. Milo shatters this idea of self-restriction and sounds a wake up call to millennials across the nation.”
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @AGockowski
