Public Colleges Seek Ways to Pull Up the Welcome Mat for White-Nationalist and Other Extremist Speakers

Police helicopters whirred overhead on Tuesday evening, and protesters shouted obscenities at a white-nationalist speaker whom no one at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville had invited.

So why was Rick Tyler, a failed candidate for Congress who had attracted national attention with his “Make America White Again” billboard, addressing a smattering of students in the university’s Alumni Memorial Building?

He was there for the same reason that Milo Yiannopoulos, a former editor at Breitbart News, was being cleared last month for a requested speaking engagement at Tulsa Community College, even though no one affiliated with the college had invited him.

And why the white nationalist Richard B. Spencer in 2016 had taken the stage of a student center at Texas A&M University at College Station despite no invitation — official or otherwise — from anyone connected with the university.

Public colleges and universities often open up their facilities for events hosted by outside groups, and the vast majority go on without a hitch, solidifying town-gown ties and sometimes bringing the campuses welcome revenue. But many colleges are now rethinking those policies as provocateurs, eager to test the limits of free speech or just to foment trouble, descend on campuses.

After the Spencer appearance created myriad logistical, financial, and public-relations complications for Texas A&M, the university revised its event-reservation policy. Beforehand any outside speakers or groups could rent space. Now they need the backing of an affiliated student group.

But that approach only goes so far, said Brett A. Sokolow, chief executive of TNG, a risk-management firm that works with colleges.

“What Texas A&M is doing is exactly what we advise,” he said. “The problem is, if you erect hurdles, someone just jumps the hurdle and finds a student group to sponsor them.”

When the University of Tennessee at Knoxville agreed to let Tyler speak, Wayne T. Davis, the interim chancellor, stressed in a written statement that Tyler hadn’t been invited by anyone affiliated with the university and that his message wasn’t welcome. Campus security, he said, was on alert.

“I want to be clear,” Davis continued. “White nationalism is contrary to our values as a university … We aspire to create an environment free of hate, prejudice, and bigotry. No one renting space on our campus will stop us from pursuing that aspiration.”

The university system’s interim president, Randy Boyd, doubled down on Davis’s message on Twitter:

Tyler’s event was billed as “White Nationalism: Fact or Fiction.” He spoke about what he called misconceptions about white nationalists, and said America was never intended to be a melting pot for people of different ethnic backgrounds. Protesters far outnumbered his audience, and while security was intense, there were no serious incidents.

According to his Facebook page, Tyler is running for president as a member of the American Freedom Party, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as a hate group.

A university spokeswoman said Tennessee’s policy allows unaffiliated groups to rent space on the campus. “Campus administration is reviewing the policy with the understanding that under state and federal law, any changes made must apply to everyone, regardless of viewpoint,” she wrote in an email.

‘Under the Publicity Radar’

Some public campuses are able to fend off divisive speakers by arguing that their appearance would pose a safety hazard.

In 2017 the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill joined at least three other major public universities in denying a request by Spencer to speak on its campus. That decision followed a violent protest by white supremacists at the University of Virginia and the death of a counterprotester the next day in Charlottesville, Va.

When Pennsylvania State University made that decision, its president, Eric J. Barron, summed up the challenge. “Penn State is an institution of higher education, and fully supports the right of free speech, and encourages its expression in thoughtful and respectful ways, even when we strongly disagree with the opinions expressed,” he wrote. “But the First Amendment does not require our university to risk imminent violence.”

It’s easier to make that argument if the college is small and isolated, and lacks a large police force, Sokolow said. The cited safety risk, he added, “has to be reasonable, not speculative.”

When Auburn University cited the threat of violence in initially denying Spencer’s request to speak, in 2017, a federal judge ruled that it hadn’t proved its case and ordered the university to allow him to speak.

Other public campuses are grappling with similar challenges. In 2017, after a tumultuous period of protests, Evergreen State College revised its guidelines for renting out campus facilities to allow only groups that can say they don’t discriminate.

And last year the University of Virginia tightened its rules for people unaffiliated with the university who wish to speak or distribute literature on campus.

Neal H. Hutchens, a professor of higher education at the University of Mississippi, wrote in an email that many colleges contemplating such changes would do so “under the publicity radar.”

“I don’t think that institutions that may have revised or narrowed their policies would seek to draw attention to such changes, as any publicity might stir efforts by controversial outside speakers to challenge the policy or attract the attention of certain advocacy groups or even lawmakers,” he wrote.

Hutchens added that “even as some universities consider potential changes to narrow access to campus for outside speakers, some states are passing campus-speech laws that may give such outside speakers stronger legal rights to speak on campus, though these protections are usually for invited speakers.”

When Tulsa Community College received a facilities request for Yiannopoulos to appear, it was backed by someone who’s been embroiled in a bitter legal feud with the college for years.

Christopher Barnett, who heads an organization called Transparency for Oklahomans, has been fighting with the college over fees it charged him for voluminous public-records requests. He was seeking information related to his husband’s suspension from the University of Tulsa for alleged social-media harassment. At issue were correspondence between related employees at the community college and the university that had to do with George (Trey) Barnett’s suspension, according to local news reports.

In a memo to students last month, Tulsa Community College’s president, Leigh B. Goodson, decried Yiannopoulos’s “history of hate speech” but said “the First Amendment gives the sponsoring organization, Transparency for Oklahomans, the right to rent our facility to share those views.”

But then Barnett announced the event was off. While the cancellation appeared to have something to do with a dispute over security fees, Transparency for Oklahomans threw in a few jabs at the college.

“While it was fun exposing TCC for the frauds that they are, TFO will not be bringing Milo back to Tulsa,” the post said. “We wish Milo the best, however this was simply a publicity stunt to bring more attention to the discrimination by TCC and the University of Tulsa.”

Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.