Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Ohio State Sued For Not Letting Richard Spencer Speak

An organizer of campus tours for white nationalist Richard Spencer is suing Ohio State University in federal court after the school refused to rent campus space to Spencer, citing a “substantial risk to public safety.”

“The University values freedom of speech,” the school wrote in a letter to Spencer’s tour organizer Cameron Padgett. “Nonetheless, the University has determined that it is not presently able to accommodate Mr. Padgett’s request to rent space at the university due to substantial risks to public safety, as well as material and substantial disruption.”

This comes days after Spencer’s speech at the University of Florida, which disrupted campus life and attracted hundreds of protestors. The governor of Florida declared a state of emergency before the speech, and security costs for the event have been estimated at $600,000.

In the hours after the speech, three men were arrested after allegedly making Nazi salutes, repeating Hitler chants and then shooting at a group of protesters. The gunshot missed the group of six to eight protesters and the men were apprehended later that night, according to police.

Spencer’s team has sued other universities for denying them a platform. When Michigan State University refused Spencer a space last month, for example, Padgett also sued the school, in a case that has yet to be resolved.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.