I loved Mrs Couey. We didn’t have “Ms” yet back then. She was my faculty advisor when I was chairman of the Student Activities Board. I was a raging teenage drug addict and she was well into her 60's. Elizabeth Couey was really sweet and so nice to me. Her boss, Dean Tilley, David Tilley, wasn’t so inclined towards me and, in fact, he kicked off campus, prohibiting me from living in the dorms. That’s not to say dear Mrs. Couey and I always agreed on everything. But I did respect her and love working with her, even when she made suggestions to me that seemed weird— like when I booked suddenly famous Julian Bond— barely older than our students— who was making headway in Georgia in the battle over racial equality and in terms of ending the war against Vietnam… my kind of guy.
When I told Mrs. Couey I had booked him to give a speech, she said I needed balance the program out. I asked her if she wanted to to hire the head of the KKK. She said I knew what she meant. And I did. I hired South Carolina racist Strom Thurmond, a Democrat turned Republican U.S. Senator. In case you don’t know who Julian Bond was— he died in 2015— but when I booked him in 1966 he was one of 8 African Americans who had been elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in the wake of passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Georgia House voted 184-12 not to seat him because he publicly opposed the war against Vietnam. Soon after, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Georgia House was depriving him of his freedom of speech and that they must seat him. So they did and I hired him.
A week before the event-- stoned out of my mind, as I was for my entire four years at Stony Brook-- I called Thurmond's office and explained that we're a struggling state university and the budget is tight and that I couldn't pay him the $5,000 I had offered and could he do it for $2,500? They said OK. I then called Julian and explained there was a change in plans and we would have to give him $7,500 instead of the agreed-upon $5,000. I felt I needed to do more.
The day of the event I picked Julian up at the airport in a fancy rented car and took him to the most exclusive restaurant in Suffolk County, the 3 Village Inn. We had an amazing dinner, and when we were leaving, we were approached in the parking lot by two waiters who said that although almost all the waiters were African Americans, this was the first time they had ever seen an African American eat there. They both had tears in their eyes. I still get tears in my eyes when I think of that moment.
Earlier I had asked my Hospitality Committee chairman, Stephen, to walk over to the Long Island Railroad Station and meet Thurmond. I gave him $10 and asked him to take the senator to a beer-and-pizza joint down the road from the campus for dinner. I knew Stephen would be very polite and charming to him-- it's in his nature. But he was the most flamboyantly gay person I knew at the time.
Julian spoke, and the audience gave him a standing ovation. Then Senator Thurmond took the stage, and the entire audience-- as if one and with no prompting-- got up and walked out of the gym. Mrs. Couey and Stephen, forever the most courteous and proper guy I had ever run across, stayed to hear Thurmond. No one ever told me what he talked about.
Yesterday, Andy Campbell, author of We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism, wrote about the drama taking place at Penn State now over the hiring of Gavin McInnes, founder of the Proud Boys domestic terrorist group to speak, and the student protests sweeping the campus. Back in my day, they wanted to impeach me for wasting $400 on hiring The Doors to do a concert. In 2 weeks they’re paying the “Stand Back & Stand By”— featuring McInnes and far-right media figure Alex Stein for a comedy hour— a lot more than that to riff on right wing grievances and Republican bigotry.
Students are protesting the plan over not just McInnes’s history of violent and bigoted rhetoric but also the potential physical threat posed by the Proud Boys. Not only does McInnes maintain a leadership role with the group— which includes members accused of leading the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, among many other violent crimes— but his previous appearances at college campuses and similar conservative events have descended into violence.
“‘Free Speech’ does not mean ‘enabling Gavin McInnes to develop and reinforce right-wing extremist networks while padding his wallet and prestige,’” reads a public petition to university administrators penned by the Student Committee for Defense and Solidarity at Penn State. “We demand that the Penn State administration deny Uncensored America permission to sponsor and platform Gavin McInnes with a speaking engagement.”
On Tuesday, the university decried McInnes’s “vitriolic and hateful language” in a statement. Still, it announced that the event would be allowed to continue “because Penn State fully supports the fundamental right of free speech.”
Student Affairs Vice President Damon Sims told HuffPost that administrators were weighing student safety against constitutionally protected speech. He said the school would “respond appropriately as circumstances require.”
“We take every reasonable precaution to protect the safety of those associated with activities on our campuses,” Sims said. “Our commitment to both freedom of expression and the welfare of our community are equally strong, despite the obvious challenges that brings.”
Penn State has hosted far-right personalities before despite student protests. In 2021, Uncensored America hosted Milo Yiannopoulos― a right-wing personality with a history of bigoted remarks who had recently defended pedophilia― for a “Pray the Gay Away” event on campus.
But McInnes’ appearance carries a threat of physical violence on top of the hateful rhetoric. At his previous speaking arrangements on college campuses and GOP events, McInnes has brought along members of the Proud Boys, who advocate for political violence. (The highest rank in the Proud Boys organization is earned by “getting arrested or in a significant violent fight for the cause,” McInnes has said.)
In 2017, McInnes brought Proud Boys to his speaking event at New York University, where the gang spent the evening clashing with protesters outside, leading to multiple arrests. Afterward, McInnes was quoted as saying: “My guys are left to fight. And here’s the crucial part: We do. And we beat the crap out of them.”
In 2018, McInnes was invited to speak at the Metropolitan Republican Club in Manhattan. His routine included a reenactment of the 1960 assassination of Inejiro Asanuma, a Japanese Socialist Party leader who was killed on live TV by a far-right ultranationalist wielding a samurai sword.
McInnes showed up flanked by a group of Proud Boys and members of a local skinhead gang, who attacked protesters gathering outside. Ten Proud Boys were charged over their role in the assault, and two members were sentenced to four years in prison.
There’s every reason to believe the Proud Boys will be in attendance at the Penn State event. Over the last week, McInnes has been promoting the event― and poking fun at protesting students― on Telegram, his primary platform for communicating with members outside his online talk show.
Even the “Stand Back & Stand By” event title is a reference to the gang: It’s a Donald Trump quote from a 2020 presidential debate after the former president was asked to decry the Proud Boys. The gang took Trump’s quote as marching orders, and some began preparations for the insurrection. Dozens of Proud Boys stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and five of their leaders face seditious conspiracy charges by the Justice Department. One of those leaders pleaded guilty last week.
In its press release for the event, Uncensored America described McInnes not as a far-right gang leader but as a “comedian, political commentator, entrepreneur, and fashion pioneer.”
Despite the risk, students vowed to protest the event in person on Oct. 24.
“Stand up, fight back!” reads a flier posted to Instagram by the Student Committee for Defense and Solidarity. “Actively challenge PSU admin’s support of McInnes— other, passive university events, which don’t shut down McInnes, are smokescreens that enable neo-fascism.”
no free speech, however, when one hits the truth on this page... sometimes, though.