Colorado Mesa University President Finds White Supremacist’s Views “Vile,” but Defends His Right to Speak on Campus

A student’s invitation to a white supremacist to speak at Colorado Mesa University ignited weeks of pushback from the campus community, but the school’s president is defending the event even as he denounces the speaker’s views as “vile.”

John Marshall, the Grand Junction school’s president, said in an interview Wednesday that the university’s role is not to “platform” or “deplatform” a controversial speaker, but to “allow space for all opinions across the political and ideological spectrum.”

In this case, the opinions of Jared Taylor — scheduled to speak Thursday evening — fall under the pseudoscientific belief that white people are biologically superior to non-white people, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which classified the website Taylor founded, American Renaissance, as a “white nationalist hate group.”

Marshall said that as he considered the correct way to handle a speaker whose views he finds “abhorrent,” he asked himself, “What if the shoe was on the other foot?”

“What if it was a trans speaker or a pro-Israel speaker?” Marshall said. “Would you feel empowered to disinvite, censor or cancel them? The answer is no. To me, the whole issue at play here is how do you protect the ability of minority views to not get silenced, and I think the uncomfortable and hard truth is the only way to do that is to protect all of it. Frankly, that doesn’t feel very good in the moment and it’s somewhat counterintuitive.”

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Max Applebaugh, president of a newly formed CMU student group called the Western Culture Club — which says it seeks to “foster and promote the values of Western culture through presentations, cookouts, community building and more” — invited Taylor to speak on the Grand Junction campus at 6 p.m. Thursday.

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The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported that Texas-based attorney Jason Lee Van Dyke donated $1,000 to help fund the event. Reached by phone Wednesday, Van Dyke said the Western Culture Club reached out to him for help because he’s well known for representing right-wing extremist group the Proud Boys and “groups that have been more credibly alleged to be racist,” such as the neo-Nazi group Aryan Freedom Network.

Taylor waived his speaking fee, but Van Dyke helped cover event logistics, he said.

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Van Dyke, who was planning to attend the event, said he was “pleasantly surprised” by Marshall’s response and admires the university president’s respect for the First Amendment. He said he hopes the evening will become a discussion about the importance of free speech.

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