Penn State University says Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes spouts “hateful and discriminatory” rhetoric — but the school also says a student group has the right to bring McInnes to speak on campus this month, at an event paid for with thousands of dollars in student fees.
Students have launched a petition and plan to protest the Oct. 24 event, seeking to block McInnes and another controversial far-right figure, Alex Stein, from speaking in State College, Pa.
The university’s leaders on Tuesday rejected calls to cancel the engagement or ban McInnes and Stein from campus. As they did so, Penn State officials stressed that the school doesn’t agree with what it deemed the speakers’ “repugnant and denigrating rhetoric.”
