Penn State University cancelled an event that was to be co-hosted by Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes due to concerns for public safety.
The October 24 event, titled “Stand Back & Stand By,” was to feature McInnes and far-right media personality Alex Stein for what was described as “a politically provocative comedy night” by campus organization Uncensored America.
The university’s president, Neeli Bendapudi, said in a statement that the speaking event was cancelled because of concern over “escalating violence and public safety.”
Proud Boys Founder Gavin McInnes at a rally in 2017.
“It is my understanding that Alex Stein (co-host with Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes) entered the peaceful protest and this action raised tension,” Bendapudi said. While she noted the speakers’ “abhorrent views and rhetoric” and that Penn State’s administration “firmly denounced the two speakers,” Bendapudi added that “we support the fundamental constitutional right of free speech.”
The event, whose title echoes then-President Donald Trump’s exhortation to the Proud Boys during a televised debate, had been pitched as pushing “the boundaries of comedy … to get people to think differently about the world.” Prior to the cancellation, a petition to university administrators protesting the campus organization’s invitation to McInnes “to come get paid and platformed with student fee dollars” had garnered over 3,000 signatures.
A video posted by Penn State student news outlet The Daily Collegian featured interviews of students at the protest. “I believe everyone has a voice, but there becomes a limit within that voice when it starts harming others,” said one.
In 2018, McInnes publicly claimed to have left the Proud Boys, the same year that the FBI categorized the group as “an extremist group with ties to white nationalism” in a briefing to Washington state law enforcement. Its leaders are on trial for seditious conspiracy following the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S Capitol building.
In her statement, Bendapudi said that the constitutional right to free expression undergirds academic freedom. “Tonight, Stein and McInnes will celebrate a victory for being canceled … (while) counter-protestors also will celebrate a victory that they forced the University to cancel the event.
“The message too many people will walk away with is that one can manipulate people to generate free publicity, or that one can restrict speech by escalating protest to violence,” she added. “These are not ideas that we can endorse as an institution of higher education,” she said.
