Whose Side Are You On? When Hate Circulates on Campus to Uphold Free Speech

• In Event: Ethnography Caucus: Ethnography in the Age of Trump II

Abstract

On Inauguration Day 2017, Milo Yiannopoulos—alt-right “provocateur,” Breitbart “journalist,” and Twitter exile—gave a talk sponsored by the University of Washington College Republicans entitled “Cyberbullying Isn’t Real.” While the hall seating 700 was sold out, only 200 spots were filled by VIPs who helped fund extra security detail. By the time his college campus tour arrived in Seattle, Yiannopolous had verbally attacked a transgender student by name at the University of Wisconsin, and resistance to his appearance at the University of California at Davis had led to its cancellation out of fear for the violence that might erupt. Such violence was well underway before, during and after Yiannopolous’ talk in Seattle—a flyer denouncing the UW College Republican President a racist who affiliated with Neo-Nazis that included her contact information was posted online; rocks, pepper spray, fists and paint were indiscriminately used as weapons in a crowd where those waiting in line and protesting the event commingled below impassive police in riot gear guarding the venue and those privileged enough to get inside; a man among those protesting was shot and the Milo-fan gunman who turned himself in that evening to UWPD was released the next day without charges; and a graduate student who had co-organized a peaceful teach-in event that day was protecting undocumented students from being filmed by Neo-Nazis and subsequently threatened and hazed on his social media and email accounts. Petitions for and against allowing Yiannopolous to speak were forwarded to UW President Ana Mari Cauce well in advance of his talk, but she felt compelled to allow the event to go on because, “A university should—indeed it must—be a place where any policy or idea, even if offensive or outrageous, can be aired, discussed, examined and debated…Passion, emotion and conviction should be celebrated. Often it is what drives us to take action, to stand up against injustice and to make our ideas count.” In a letter to the UW community weeks before Yiannopolous’ talk, President Cauce added, “the right to free speech and expression is broad…as a public university committed to the free exchange of ideas and free expression, we are obligated to uphold this right…we have reviewed this event with the State Attorney General’s office and there are not…sufficient grounds to ban him from speaking.” This paper is based on participant-observation conducted in the crowd outside the venue that night; it analyzes the violence that occurs when the blurring of boundaries between “free” and “hate” speech is enacted on the ground, and explores this obfuscation from the perspectives of legal and public policy, as well as those “for” and “against” Yiannopolous’ right to speak on campus. This ethnographic examination asks what forms of resistance are politically and ethically possible when hate circulates so widely and at such intensity that passion, emotion and conviction engender social violence without aim, strategy or consequence.

Author

• Jessica Johnson, University of Washington