The following piece, written by the editorial editors, reflects the majority opinion of the editorial board.
On Dec. 5, in almost one month exactly, Harry T. Wilks Theater will host the senior editor of alt-right outlet Breitbart News, a public speaker and open critic of the Black Lives Matter movement, Milo Yiannopoulos, as part of "The Dangerous Faggot Tour."
Yiannopoulos has already attempted other college visits, many of which were cancelled due to "security concerns." Miami's (younger) southern counterpart, the University of Miami (FL), cancelled a visit about a month ago, on Oct. 3, due to "security concerns," as reported by foxnews.com. This was in response to his speech at Texas Tech, where the British media personality told the conservative crowd that "the people I really loathe" are college professors.
Such remarks seem to be par for the course in Yiannopoulos' speeches. When discussing the merits of Black Lives Matter, he denounced the group's credibility and claimed that it existed in order to make money.
Aside from his criticisms of liberalism, he has used Twitter as an instrument to criticize Islam following the Orlando Shooting and attack actress Leslie Jones, featured in the Ghostbusters remake, culminating in a permanent ban of his Twitter account.
In a speech called "In Defense of Hazing" given at Dartmouth on Nov. 1, Yiannopoulos also had plenty to say about the fundamental differences between men and women.
"This election can be viewed as a pitched battle between men and women," Yiannopoulos said. "I think you have all, for better or worse, the classical male virtues embodied in Donald Trump, and, for mostly worse, all of the classical female virtues embodied in Hillary Clinton. Good lord, right down to the scissoring."
He also managed to mention "just how insane the Black Lives Matter movement is" before moving on to why he believes women don't have the right biological tools to create a good society on their own.
"There's never been a society that wasn't constructed on the backs of men. It's a simple biological fact apparent to anyone who bothers to look around ... It's very simple: the roofs over your head, the floor under your feet, pretty much everything you use was designed and built by men," said Yiannopoulos.
He cited the moon landing as one of his points to prove why only males are more capable of constructing a legitimate society. He conveniently left out the fact that the "Human Computer" Katherine Johnson, the black woman who calculated the trajectory of the first trip to the moon, was instrumental in getting the first humans on the moon. Her math was so accurate that she was asked to double check the accuracy of the computers that NASA was using at the time.
A video appearance in FSB's Talor Auditorium by Yiannopoulos was initially scheduled for Nov. 3 at 6 p.m. by Turning Point USA, a student-run, reactionary, regressive, political propaganda group that partners with such prestigious organizations as the Ayn Rand Institute and Prager University, among others. His December visit remains on schedule.
And while many universities on Yiannopoulos' tour have cancelled his appearance, Michelle Thomas, the Director of Business School Organizations and Diversity, makes it clear that this is a matter of free speech and therefore the university and the Farmer School of Business have no right to shut it down.
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"Taylor Auditorium [the original location] is a public university space and any organization affiliated with the university is allowed to use it providing that it is available," said Thomas. "The Farmer School of Business is not sponsoring this event. As a public institution of higher learning, we fully support freedom of speech and expression. We do not take any political stance nor do we side with any specific political party."
But there is a line between free speech and hate speech. Without Miami as a stopping point in December, Yiannopoulos will still continue to be able to spout his truly backwards rhetoric elsewhere. We don't need him here. We don't want him here. He will add nothing. Nothing, that is, except for more hate, racism and sexism while trying to pass it off as fact.
And with new initiatives from President Crawford to make the campus more inclusive, hosting Yiannopoulos, even letting him put us in as a stop on his roster, is a step away from everything the new
Miami is claiming it wants to do.
It should be obvious that Milo Yiannopoulos is not fit to listen to. But if Miami won't step in here, the students need to.
What this campus needs is more Love and Honor, not a man who hates professors, women and minorities, just to name a few.
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