NEWS
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CAMPUS UF ADMINISTRATION
Why Richard Spencer should not speak on campus
Aug. 20, 2017UF President Kent Fuchs’s Aug. 16 statement cancelling the visit by white supremacist Richard Spencer was on the mark. Events in Charlottesville, Virginia, together with warnings of a “battlefield” in Gainesville provide ample reason to halt the event. Fuchs was also right to emphasize that personally, he finds Spencer’s rhetoric “repugnant and counter to everything this nation stands for.” But though safety issues and not Spencer’s ideas comprised the reason for the cancellation, Spencer is considering a lawsuit, arguing that UF is using safety as a pretext to limit free speech. In a similar case this year, Auburn University allowed Spencer to speak rather than face a court battle.
