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Free Speech, Fascist Dogma and Cal Poly

One side calls the other radicals; the other employs the term fascist. Sometimes they switch and combine. Sometimes the recognizable term Leftist and the rather new moniker “Alt-right” are added to the mix.

In this case recent style revisions employed at The Washington Post, New York Times, and Associated Press all require clarification, at the very least explanation, with the admonishment that broad social groups are not necessarily allowed to name themselves. Since the SLO City News follows it’s own guide, loosely based on the AP, we’re going to go with an option suggested by John Daniszewski, their vice president for standards, deeming the “Alt-right,” an offshoot of conservatism mixing racism, white nationalism and populism.

In the case of Milo Yiannopoulos, the particular “Alt-right” speaker being brought to the Cal Poly campus by the university’s College Republicans student club on Jan. 31 next year, the conservatism comes in the form of a gay Catholic man who has encouraged his peers, supporters and readers of the right-wing website Breitbart News to call him a “Dangerous Faggot.”

That’s the title of his speaking tour, visiting universities in Britain and the U.S. since 2015.

It’s perhaps easy to see, or at least assume, why Katherine Rueckert, president of the Cal Poly College Republican club, describes the “political incorrectness” of Yiannopoulos “refreshing.” On a purely emotional level there may be some sort of release for many of his target audience the same way suburban white kids get a little transgressive thrill singing along with Kanye West’s “Gold Digger.”

Members of the Cal Poly Queer Student Union (QSU) are certainly willing to make assumptions about what’s in the heart of people who would bring such a man to campus, and they absolutely agree he’s dangerous.

“I think the debate around free speech is a facade to prevent us from talking about the real issue,” wrote Matt Klepfer, co-president of QSU, and a founder of the campus activist group SLO Solidarity, “The Cal Poly College Republicans, a club made up of our ‘peers’, are LITERALLY bringing a sexist/fascist/white supremacist to our campus. Not because they ‘believe in his right to speak’ (the line they will always jump to), but because they believe the things he is saying.”

The message was posted to Facebook on Dec. 4 along with a graphic shared from the QSU picturing Cal Poly professor and the Cal Poly Republicans’ advisor Dr. Brian Kennelly. The image, with the tagline “Smash Racism & Fascism” speaks in the voice of Kennelly saying, “I’m also bringing the White Supremacist Nazi Milo Yiannopoulos to campus…Email me….”

In their official statement, drafted by the QSU board, their terms were slightly more considered, making the very important point that the QSU, “targeting the Cal Poly College Republicans over email and social media for their oppressive politics is very different than students at large targeting individual members of the Queer Student Union, especially given the history of our campus: death threats and hate crimes.”

Kennelly, a Cal Poly professor of French for 11 years and the Republican club’s advisor for the last three does describe himself as a fiscal conservatism, and first became interested in the Party’s politics with involvement in the Log Cabin Republicans. For reference, that’s the nation’s largest and oldest Republican organization, “dedicated to representing LGBT conservatives and allies.”

In case that doesn’t point to the more complex relationships at work between free speech and politics on a college campus, Kennelly spells out that he understands as much as anyone can where his critics are coming from, “I happen to be gay…. and I was the biggest leftist on campus as a 20-year-old.”

But, as someone who’s been involved in the cause of FIRE [Foundation for Individual Rights in Education] a non-profit group whose goal is “to defend and sustain individual rights at America’s colleges and universities,” with a focus on”freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience” for equally as long, his work as advisor and acedemic conscious is putting him at odds with groups he otherwise sympatizes with.

“This is what college is about,” he said. “expsure to ideas, all kinds of ideas. It would be simplistic to think that we are born one way [ideologically] without the potentail to develop.”

One thing Rueckert, Kennelly and Yiannopoulos agree on is that “political correctness is a scourge,” but when asked, as several people have phrased a version of since the postings, “How could you help people who spew venom make a fortune of their evil talk?,” Kennelly’s response is always, “I advise this student group.”
For the most part his role is educational and in helping them navigate the adult world of organization.

And while Rueckert shows appreciation for his role, she’d like the record set straight on how they came to invite the “Alt-right” speaker almost a year before the current political climate came to a head.

“We started talking to his people last year,” she said, noting that a core group, within the club of some more than 70 people were interested, “but it just didn’t look like we were going to be able to schedule anything.”

After a group went to another university’s event however, they felt energized and kept after the “Faggot” tour organizers. In short, the club embraced Cal Poly’s “learn by doing” motto with a little tenacity and refusal to give up easily. Now that there’s predictable opposition to their goal, they’re not about to cave.
“Open dialogue is why we wanted him here,” said Rueckert, “We’ve heard his talks before but it’s the audience driven questions that make all the difference…And that’s why we’re bringing him.”

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