Free speech at FSU shown with Milo Yiannopoulus visit, Black Lives Matter protest
Joseph Zeballos-Roig
Friday was a day unlike others at Florida State University.
It was a tale of two worlds as Milo Yiannopoulos, a conservative provocateur known for riling up college campuses and a solidarity gathering organized by student leaders on campus for Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man shot by a white police officer in Oklahoma, kicked off within an hour of each other.
Free speech on campus, it seems, won on both sides.
For an hour at the HCB auditorium on Friday evening, Yiannopoulos, a controversial figure of the alt-right known for his inflammatory rhetoric against women, African Americans and the LGBTQ+ community, held a mock funeral for Twitter. The room was nearly filled to capacity.
Yiannopoulos, the tech editor of right-wing Breitbart News, visited campus at the invitation of FSU's College Republicans as part of his national tour of college campuses. He waived his speaking fee and covered the cost of his own security.
Yiannopoulos centered his discussion around Twitter, which news reports earlier in the day revealed is discussing a potential sale. The social media service banned Yiannopoulos in July for violating its terms of service after sparking an online campaign of abuse against Leslie Jones, the co-star of the all-female reboot of Ghostbusters.
He criticized Twitter for what he viewed as its unfairness, alleging in fiery and at times, offensive, terms that the site is "clamping down on conservatives" and allowing Black Lives Matter and female users to violate its terms of service without consequence.
"I have never seen a social networking company ban anyone like feminists or Black Lives Matter. I have never seen any of these people censored – they are allowed to get away with murder provided they have the right politics," Yiannopoulos said.
The visit generated much controversy around campus, as Yiannopoulos's visit was met by heated student protests. Led by Tallahassee Students for a Democratic Society, dozens of students protested his speech outside of HCB, condemning him as a racist who didn't deserve free speech rights. They were confronted by a handful of Yiannopoulos supporters, who taunted them from close by.
Several organizations and individuals, including the Pride Student Union, the UFF/FSU Grad Assistants United and Vice President for Student Affairs Mary Coburn, denounced and distanced themselves from the event.
"Recognized student organizations, such as the College Republicans, invite speakers to campus routinely, some of whom have extreme agendas," Coburn said to the Tallahassee Democrat. "FSU neither invited Milo Yiannopoulos nor banned him, recognizing that universities are marketplaces of ideas where students can decide for themselves whether they wish to listen and/or they passionately agree or disagree."
James Dilmore, the president of FSU College Republicans, brushed aside the cascade of criticism, saying that as a Republican, he's "used to it."
"It's just a normal liberal talking point when anyone disagrees or has a dissenting opinion that's not in line with their own," Dilmore says. "The cornerstone of the liberal movement is everyone is a racist and a bigot if they disagree with you."
Not far away, however, another group exercised free speech rights as well.
At the Integration Statue, a rally organized by black student leaders in conjecture with a "National Blackout" for Terrance Crutcher was an hour in when several students wearing Trump gear who were planning to attend the Yiannopoulos event came face-to-face with the dozens of students standing for Crutcher.
Yet what could have been a tense confrontation instead turned into a civil discussion of opinions and differences between both sides.
"It didn't get heated but we were very passionate. I heard some of the same rhetoric from them that I hear on the news, so I set the stage for an open conversation about differences and opinions and they were very receptive to it," said Maurice McDaniel, one of the homecoming directors for FSU's Black Student Union (BSU) and an organizer of the solidarity event. "Once we realized they weren't here just to provoke us and just wanted to talk, we really bought into that."
Andrew Melville, one of the directors of the Coalition of Black Organizational Leadership within BSU and another organizer, said the civility shown by everyone opened opportunities for people to listen to each other – something not readily seen in day-to-day media coverage.
"We're all college students at Florida State University and this is what going to college is about. They listened and we listened and it was just a great opportunity for both sides," Melville said. "I think the media does a horrible job and portray only the crazy things that happens but civilized conversations can happen too."
"We put our differences aside and we were just people. You don't see something like that every day," McDaniel said.