tobermoriansass:

Far-right internet troll Milo Yiannopoulos has seen his media profile rise thanks to attention-grabbing bigoted comments and support of Donald Trump, whom he refers to as ‘daddy’.

Yiannopoulos, who was banned from Twitter earlier this year after allegedly encouraging a wave of racist abuse directed at Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones, is capitalising on his cult-like following with a ‘Dangerous Faggot Tour’ at universities and colleges across the US.

When Yiannopoulos was confirmed to be speaking at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, students attempted to make officials aware of his views and abusive history.

But despite repeated protests, university administrators decided that Yiannopoulos – who says he would ‘cure’ himself of being gay if he could and describes trans people as “mentally ill… gay men dressing up for attention” – should still be allowed to speak at the event on December 14.

Yiannopoulos proceeded to use the event to single out and humiliate a transgender student who attends the university, exactly as protesters had warned he would.

…….

The session continued for nearly two hours after the incident.

University chancellor Mark Mone – who ignored repeated warnings and protests in order to let Yiannopoulos speak – sent an all-student email condemning the comments.

After defending the principle of “free speech”, he wrote: “I do not agree with Yiannopoulos’ views, and I strongly condemn the belittling of others and their appearance, and the encouragement of hate and harassment.

“I also will not stand silently by when a member of our campus community is personally and wrongly attacked. I am disappointed that this speaker chose to attack a transgender student.

“Our campus has a wonderful diversity that fosters a creative and exciting learning environment. It is critical that we protect, support and celebrate the exchange of ideas and cultural traditions that take place here.

“The inclusivity and safety of our campus are top priorities. Every member of our community should feel safe and valued, regardless of beliefs, race, sexual orientation, immigration or other status.”

Speaking to student media outlet Media Milwaukee, Adelaide Kramer – whose case had received some limited media attention previously – said: “I knew Milo was going to regurgitate a profound amount of racist and transphobic hate.

“What I did not anticipate was being specifically targeted and called out in the way he did. I hadn’t said anything or made even the slightest disruption: He had his harassment of me planned out well in advance.

“I’m sitting there and I hear him say ‘Justine Kramer’ and I just froze up. I have never, ever, ever been more terrified in my life of being outed. Ever.

“This also isn’t just a case of a speaker going off an a tangent like that, like some random occurrence. It was not a case where you had no way of knowing he would do this. Quite the contrary: Milo has a supremely extensive, highly-documented track record of doing precisely this.

“As I’ve already said, ‘YOU KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN. WE TOLD YOU IT WOULD. AND WE TOLD YOU AGAIN. AND AGAIN’.”

Adelaide Kramer told the outlet she is quitting the university.

the apology offered by the university chancellor is pretty milquetoast all things considered, especially when you take into account the fact that the alt-right deliberately tracked down and acquired photographs of a trans student that milo yiannopoulos then used to humiliate her on stage with. this is unacceptable on every single level and given that the chancellor was warned about it in advance - and still chose to ignore the warnings by citing free speech (and then proceeded to cite free speech before making his apology) - this warrants much more than a single apology.

what can you do?

• here is the university chancellor’s contact info: Phone: 414-229-4331. Fax: 414-229-2347. don’t just call the office to register displeasure:
  
• make them promise to ban members of the alt-right from speaking on their campuses. hate speech is a form of harassment and this kind of targeted harassment is unacceptable - and likely to continue. this is endangering the lives of students who are vulnerable and marginalized and susceptible to be targeted. twitter - the haven of the alt-right and contemporary neo-n*zi movements - has banned milo yiannopoulos from their site: there is absolutely no reason for anyone to give him or his cronies further platforms to express their views.
• compensate the harassed student adequately for the pain suffered & the forcible outing and exposure caused through deliberate negligence on the part of the university and its chancellor. kramer is now leaving the university because of the incident, but the alt-right have effectively painted a bulls-eye target on her back through this. the university must be made to support her because of the harm they have caused her by deliberately ignoring the warning the alt-right would do something like this.
• ask them what concrete steps they are planning to put into place to prevent this from happening in the future. ask them to list these proposals. ask them if it includes a no-platform policy for the alt-right and for people like milo yiannopoulos.
• if you have social anxiety or simply can’t handle talking to people on the phone write to the chancellor’s office expressing these two points at this address:
  
  Office of the Chancellor
  Chapman Hall 202
  2310 E. Hartford Ave
  P.O. Box 413
  Milwaukee, WI 53201
• You can also tweet the chancellor at this handle.
• if you can, track down the contact information for the board of directors and the board of trustees and pressure them on the three points outlined above.
  
• make a noise about this. talk about this on twitter, tumblr and on every social media platform. make it clear that the alt-right is deliberately targeting vulnerable and marginalized students and using hate speech against them in public fora where they cannot fight back. free speech is no excuse for hate speech and free speech when the spoken-to cannot speak back against the speaker in real time is not free speech at all. this is essentially an act of verbal violence and assault against a trans student and it is unlikely that this will be the last instance of this happening. create a tweetstorm that demands accountability from mark mone and the university of wisconsin-milwaukee
• tweet news platforms and journalists on twitter. if they’re keen on covering the alt-right then they need to cover, as well, the kinds of acts of violence the alt-right are perpetuating against the most marginalized in the USA. pressure them to cover this and to ask the chancellor why he ignored his students’ warnings, to ask him what concrete steps he plans to put into place to prevent this from happening again.
• don’t let this disappear silently into the night. talk about it. catalogue it. when someone brings up free speech ask them whether free speech allows for the direct targeting of vulnerable students. talk about why a no-platform for fascists policy is crucial to preventing this kind of verbal violence and dialogue from being normalized, from exposing new people to its beliefs and validating their own prejudices. just. don’t let it go.

if you can think of/know of any further action points that can be taken here, please please please add them to this post.