On an otherwise peaceful Monday night, Miami University's campus was interrupted for a short time by a group from the National Socialist Movement that had originally intended to visit Miami's Hamilton campus.

The 10 members of the white supremacist group carried signs and flags and wore swastika armbands as part of their efforts to protest a pro-immigration forum held by the American Civil Liberties Union at the Hamilton campus. When they ended up at the wrong address, the group decided to march around Oxford's campus instead.

"We are here for white America," said Corporal Gary Robinson, a picketer who carried a flag that incorporated a logo of NSM88, the largest modern Nazi party in the country, into an American flag. "We want white people to grow some spine."

Another picketer explained that the group usually wears brown shirt uniforms but that night they chose plain clothes so they could infiltrate the immigration forum.

"We're very patriotic, very American, we're grassroots activism," the picketer said. "We believe in the Constitution as it was originally written."

When asked what specific parts of the Constitution he was referring to, he replied that it was "too much" and he wouldn't answer.

As Miami students honked their horns or called out to the picketers, the group called back with slurs in German and shouts of "White power!"

The demonstrators talked about how ethnic groups are encouraged to be proud of their heritage and they believe it is unfair that whites are not allowed to do so.

"When we do it, we are called haters and people even physically assault us," said a picketer by name of Austin.

Robinson said non-whites in America are creating a massive detriment to the economy and society of the country.

"We saw the despair in how society was torn apart by immigrants and blacks in this country," he said. "We plan to make white Americans aware of their rights, to tell them to grow some spine."

Robinson also said NSM88 plans to run several candidates in the 2008 presidential election.

After marching north on Campus Avenue, east on High Street and south on Patterson Avenue, Miami University and Oxford police, who were patrolling the streets, told the picketers they had to leave.

According to First Amendment rights, anyone is allowed to stand on a public sidewalk and make political statements. The NSM88 members violated a different rule, however.

"Once it was very clear they were trying to parade, they were asked to leave," said Richard Little, senior director of communications for the university. "The rule is that no group can just come on campus without an affiliation with the students. If they tried to go into Shriver, we would have said no, because that would be demonstrating."

Within the city of Oxford, a permit is required to parade on public property.

A similar incident occurred in April 1990, when the Ku Klux Klan marched on Main Street in response to two Talawanda High School students being expelled for wearing KKK robes to school as Halloween costumes the previous October.

Days after the school incident, about 500 demonstrators participated in a peace march through the city. The KKK then requested an application for a march to be held Dec. 23, much to the chagrin of the campus and community.

The march was postponed until April of the following year, and some students were dismayed by President Paul Pearson's request to ignore the march.

"Where have the values of a society gone when, on the one hand, its youth is taught to believe in equal rights and brotherhood, and the other hand, we stand calmly by and allow a group which teaches the inherent inequality of man access to our campus?" asked one student in a letter to the editor published in The Miami Student, published April 13, 1990.

Communication professor Howard Kleiman said there's little that can be done on public property.

"There is no content regulation, unless it is unprotected," he said. "For it to be unprotected, it would have to be a direct threat to someone. Just saying 'I hate this group,' while obviously obnoxious and hateful, legally is protected by the First Amendment."

A famous Supreme Court case that came out of Hamilton, Ohio, known as the "Brandenburg case," reversed an Ohio court verdict that a KKK rally filmed by news reporters advocated direct violence. Although a cross was burned and the 12 participants carried firearms, no one was hurt and no orders were given to harm anyone.

"The reality is, and the case law says, whether it's the KKK in Hamilton in the Brandenburg case, you can say really hateful things, unless you're asking people to go out directly and break the law," Kleiman said. "Hate speech has to be in someone's face. That's not protected, but short of that, they can do what they want."

Kleiman said universities can establish restrictions on who uses college space, but it has to be non-content based.

"They have to treat these guys the same as anyone else," he said.

Carole Johnson, internal communications coordinator for Miami and spokesperson for Miami Hamilton, said local police were contacted when the school got word of the potential protest.

"We did it just to be sure things were in control and safe," she said.

Little said the same for Oxford's campus.

"There is a point when police have to intervene, but not at the risk of violating someone's rights," he said. "While it was certainly unnerving to see that for folks, I don't think there was any great risk (last night). The last thing you want to do is create what they want, which is fright and attention."