White nationalist Richard Spencer's Ohio lawsuit ends

By Dan Sewell
Associated Press

CINCINNATI (AP) — A federal lawsuit over white nationalist Richard Spencer’s effort to speak at the University of Cincinnati ended last week.

A court filing shows Spencer’s campus tour organizer dropped its suit against the university. Attorney Mark Landes, who represents the school, said there was no settlement agreement with Spencer’s side.

“They’re not getting anything,” Landes said.

The attorney for Spencer’s tour organizer didn’t respond immediately to requests for comment.

The school last fall agreed to let Spencer speak, and a March date was set. The university demanded a security fee of nearly $11,000, prompting Spencer’s tour organizers to sue in January. The speaking date came and went with the dispute unresolved.

Spencer’s attorney has called the fee discriminatory and unconstitutional. The school said the amount was a “mere fraction” of its expected security costs.

Spencer calls his views “alt-right.” He advocates a white “ethno-state” and espouses anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant beliefs. UC’s board of trustees publicly condemned hate last October while citing the fundamental right to free speech at a public university.

The school’s president, Neville Pinto, repeatedly referred to Spencer last Wednesday as an uninvited speaker. There are “no plans for Spencer to speak at UC,” he said.

“While this has been a trying time for our community and one that tested our commitment to free speech, it has also prompted difficult conversations about how freedom of expression intertwines with our commitment to equity and inclusion. ... This trying time has made us even stronger,” Pinto said.

Spencer spoke in March at Michigan State University, where protesters far outnumbered his audience during that school’s spring break.

Spencer’s side earlier dropped a federal lawsuit against Ohio State University over its refusal to book him. The school said Spencer’s appearance posed a “substantial risk” to public safety and could cause disruption.

Ohio State University pointed to deadly violence in August at a Charlottesville, Virginia, rally, where Spencer was a scheduled speaker, and his raucous October appearance at the University of Florida, where authorities estimated security costs at $600,000.

He also had wanted to speak in May at Kent State University in October, but the school said he couldn’t be accommodated during the busy time at the end of the school year.