Taylor Made to Split! Antifascists Diminish American Renaissance Founder’s Event at Arizona State University

Arizona has a lot of high-profile fascists, some of them running for office. That doesn’t mean Arizona likes it – or wants more of them in their state.

TEMPE, AZ – It is a few months before White Supremacist and American Renaissance editor Jared Taylor will be at his annual safe space, the American Renaissance Conference taking place just outside Nashville, Tennessee in November, but if he thought that Arizona would be another one for him he might have been dissuaded from that notion as his appearance at Arizona State University (ASU) became a lackluster event for him as he played to a near-empty room, antifascists overwhelmed attendees outside and he ended the event early.

The event organizers, ASU student group College Republicans United (CRU), which was founded by associates of the neo-fascist “Groyper Movement” and not affiliated with the College Republicans who denounced the event, thought that they would have a larger crowd and moved from one hall to a larger one in anticipation of that. In the end however, the new hall with a capacity of 438 showed how sparsely attended Taylor’s talk was. Meanwhile, counterprotesters numbering well over 100 turned out to oppose the conference. Some were able to have discussions with the attendees who were outside before they entered the hall and a number of antifascists gave speeches calling for everyone to continue opposing fascism and fascist events.

Prior to Taylor’s appearance, University officials and event organizers pushed back on anyone who were opposed to a neo-fascist coming to campus to promote his ideology, declaring the event and the views being espoused as being respected in the name of free speech, CRU declaring on Twitter, “Our event is a victory for free speech,” and the university itself saying in a statement, “ASU is a public educational institution that is committed to free, robust and uninhibited sharing of ideas among all members of the University’s community.”

Despite the free speech pronouncement however, journalists and even ASU students were among those who were disallowed by CRU to even enter the hall if they saw fit to bar them and many called ASU and in particular University President Michael Crow out on this hypocrisy. “The security guard said, ‘I’m sorry they’re in charge of all this’.” ASU student Kailash Garcia-Delaney told the Northeast Valley News after she and two other students were told, “You are not welcome” by a CRU member. “The whole point is that we’re supposed to be able to hear opposing perspectives and views that are different from our own but in this moment, we’re not allowed to go hear someone that has a different perspective.”

Another student also spoke about the duplicity of the event. “It’s unfortunate,” ASU student Chayce Bland told Northeast Valley News, whose journalists were among those who were not allowed to enter. “This is a college that claims to be the most innovative and most diverse. They took an accolade for that; this isn’t how you celebrate that.” According to the Northeast Valley News, an ASU representative told them ”it was solely up to the event organizers on who got in…registered or not.”

Taylor is currently planning the next American Renaissance (AmRen) Conference, a White supremacist event who’s past participants attended and networked to organize the tragic Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville as well as members of the neo-fascist group Patriot Front who were arrested in June in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho as they attempted to crash a Pride event there. This year’s conference, which will be held Nov. 18-20 at Montgomery Bell State Park Inn in Burns, TN, has announced former US Congressman Steve King and failed Congressional candidate Laura Loomer. As was the case with ASU, AmRen organizers have worked with park officials in the past to ensure that no one, not even those visiting the park will have access to the venue, despite it being a venue that is open to the public.