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Penn State administrators have denounced the forthcoming appearance of right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, who has been invited by a student organization to speak on campus Nov. 3. In a statement issued yesterday, the university expressed “profound dismay” about Yiannopoulos’s invitation, noting that he “has a history of remarks that disparage various groups, including the LGBTQ community.”
At the same time, the statement, signed by three administrators, acknowledged that the university could do nothing to stop him. “As offensive and hurtful as Yiannopoulos’s comments have been and are likely to be again, and despite our own abhorrence for such statements and the promotional tactics used, Uncensored America has the undeniable Constitutional right to sponsor this presentation on our campus,” it read.
Yiannopoulos has been permanently banned from Twitter for racist remarks and also kicked off Facebook and Instagram for promoting “dangerous” hate speech, Centre Daily Times reported. In 2017 he was forced to resign as editor of Breitbart News over past remarks he’d made endorsing pedophilia.
The group that invited him, Uncensored America, was founded at Penn State last year. Its website lists no members or financial backers.
During the Nov. 3 event, titled Pray the Gay Away, Yiannopoulos will discuss “free speech, faith, conversion therapy, hair style, and more!” according to the event homepage. It describes him as “a reformed sodomite.”
The administrators’ statement urged students to “avoid being baited into reacting,” encouraging them instead to make their opposition known “by uniting against Yiannopoulos in the most effective way possible -- by ignoring him.”
Penn State’s student government and LGBTQ+ organizations issued their own condemnation of the event. Student organizations on campus have scheduled a competing event for the same night, titled Spread Love, Not Hate.
