For weeks, the University of Florida has been urging students to stay away from a Thursday speech by white nationalist Richard Spencer, hoping to avoid the deadly clashes that unfolded in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August.
But hundreds of them, along with many non-students, defied those requests, marching on the campus theater Spencer rented. His speech there is part of a tour of public universities that has triggered passionate debates about the boundaries of free speech and hate speech and fanned fears of continued violence.
The point, some protesters said, was to turn out in numbers that would make the number of Spencer supporters look tiny. “We don’t want your Nazi hate,” the protesters chanted, pounding drums and carrying signs championing diversity.
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“I don’t believe staying home is an option in the face of hate and evil,” said Timothy Tia, a student organizer.
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The clashes some feared didn’t happen, as Spencer’s outnumbered fans seemed focused on attending the event at the Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts rather than on confronting the crowds.
They framed the opposition as working to silence a man who advocates for an “ethno state” for white people.
“He’s trying to make it, normalize the idea for white people to have an identity, to advocate for their own interests and to advocate for our own existence,” said Will Fears, who traveled from Texas.
Hundreds of police officers showed up, creating an overwhelming security presence that included helicopters and officers stationed on rooftops and throughout the theater. Authorities announced one arrest, of a man they described as a security guard hired by the media, for carrying a firearm on campus.
The university was among a number of public schools that have refused to host Spencer, citing threats of violence similar to what took place in Charlottesville, where his torch-carrying followers, along with the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis, participated in an Aug. 12 “Unite the Right” rally to protest the removal of a statue honoring Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. They clashed violently with counterprotesters, including members of the so-called antifa movement (short for anti-fascists). A participant plowed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing a woman.
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The University of Florida later reversed its decision on Thursday’s event, saying it was committed to upholding the First Amendment, even if that required security measures that would cost $500,000. President W. Kent Fuchs urged students not to come near the event, saying Spencer and his followers wanted to provoke a reaction. The school offered an online discussion at the time of the speech as an alternative.
The event also drew concerns from the local sheriff, who asked Gov. Rick Scott for help. Scott issued a state of emergency to make it easier for authorities from outside Gainesville to help.
Spencer seemed to revel in the attention. He held a pre-speech news conference in which he denied being a white supremacist and compared his vision of an “ethno state” to the pursuit of Israel as a Jewish state. He also parried reporters’ questions with condescending answers, calling them “dumb,” “not smart enough,” and compared them to preschoolers.
And he described his supporters as being oppressed by “politically correct” opponents.
He called Thursday’s event as a victory, proof “that we are persevering.”