Prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer is scheduled to speak next month at Texas A&M. Students and faculty are reportedly outraged, but the school says there is little they can do to stop him.
According to a report Wednesday in The Texas Tribune and the campus newspaper The Battalion, Spencer, who led a Nazi-style salute at a recent policy gathering in D.C. for his organization the National Policy Institute, was invited by a former student to speak at Texas A&M.
“Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!” Spencer said at the D.C. gathering on Saturday.
The Texas Tribune reported that ” hundreds of people” have signed online petitions and are “calling on social media for his speech to be canceled.”
But the school said there is nothing they can do.
“Private citizens are permitted to reserve space available to the public,” Amy Smith, a spokeswoman for the school, told the Texas Tribune.
Under the school’s rules, the renters must foot the bill for the space.
Texas A&M said that Spencer’s brand of white nationalist ideology runs counter to the school’s mission.
“To be clear, Texas A&M University – including faculty, staff, students and/or student groups – did not invite this speaker to our campus nor do we endorse his rhetoric in any way,” Smith told the newspaper. “In fact, our leadership finds his views as expressed to date in direct conflict with our core values.”
