ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY TO HOST WHITE SUPREMACIST JARED TAYLOR ON CAMPUS

On September 2, 2022 at Arizona State University (ASU) is hosting longtime white supremacist propaganist Jared Taylor for a lecture titled “If We Do Nothing: A Defense of White Identity Politics.”

For decades, Taylor has been a major influencer amongst his fellow racist travelers as the founder of white supremacist magazine-turned-website American Renaissance. The publication (like Taylor) attempts to present itself academically, but American Renaissance is a longtime propaganda outlet for neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, eugenicists, so-called “race realists,” and other white nationalist writers and readers. At his annual conference (also called American Renaissance) Taylor similarly hosts international white supremacist leaders to network and spew their hateful ideologies to a crowd of likeminded thinkers.

“The ideal I would put forward is the creation of a white ethnostate on the North American continent,” said Richard Spencer as a guest speaker at the 11th American Renaissance conference in 2013. Four years later Spencer would help plan the deadly Unite the Right neo-Nazi rally.

Previous conferences have featured Nazis like Spencer multiple times. Other honored guests included VDare’s Peter Brimelow, James Allsup and Patrick Casey. Former Klan lawyer Sam Dickson is an annual speaker.

Taylor also shows his support to hate groups geared towards younger white supremacists, appearing as a guest at the 2022 America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) hosted by antisemitic, white nationalist “groyper” Nicholas Fuentes. At events like AFPAC, the 70-year-old poses for photos and signs copies of his racist books for the next era of white Christian supremacists. Taylor was an early supporter of Fuentes, also featuring him as a guest speaker at the 16th American Renaissance conference in 2018.

Unsurprisingly, the Arizona State University student organization hosting Taylor also has ties to the America First/”groyper” movement and a history of racism themselves.

As LCRW previously reported, ASU’s College Republicans United (CRU) was founded in 2018 by Richard “Rick” Thomas as a more far-right alternative to conservative student groups already on campus. College Republican chapters are part of a broader coalition that exist on campuses like ASU, University of Arizona and other colleges across the country. Rumors in the America First/”groyper” scene allege that the college coalition is affiliated with Fuentes and a rebrand of America First Students, but those claims are unconfirmed. It wasn’t long after the ASU-CRU chapter was founded that fellow club members began exposing the leaders for their own hateful views.

Thomas had his social media chats leaked, which revealed the CRU founder espoused nazi slogans and beliefs, including antisemitism, promotion of eugenics, anti-LGBTQ bigotry. The CRU founder called for Muslims to be banned and referred to Black rapper and actor Childish Gambino/Donald Glover as “degenerate monkey filth.” Photos also showed Thomas and fellow CRU member Cody Friedland posing in front of a Dodge Challenger with a tiki torch in one hand and a gallon of milk in the other, a reference to the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville where Heather Heyer was murdered by neo-nazi James Alex Fields Jr. in a vehicular attack. Despite graduating, Thomas still organizes with ASU-CRU and appears on the Arizona Corporate Commissions registry information for Republicans United LLC; his LinkedIn page also names him as the founder of the LLC.

Co-founder and early ASU-CRU chairman Kevin Decuyper was also quickly outed as a white supremacist in a public Facebook exchange where Decuyper was asked why he was posing in a photograph with Black conservative commentator Candace Owens. Decuyper responded:

“I work in state politics and co-founded a right wing organization that’s already called Nazis/alt-right regularly so it helps me a lot to be camoflaged [sic] and low key on my public profile because it helps to have the support of the right wing community who thankfully don’t know my more extreme views.”

When Decuyper refused to tone down his out-and-open racism, he was ousted entirely and founded his own more openly white supremacist group Nationalists United, which still posts antisemtic, neo-nazi imagery regularly on social media. This type of controversy would become a pattern with ASU-CRU.

As years went on, the student group continually hosted far-right extremists on and off campus. Several “groyper”-friendly guests would be invited to campus by ASU-CRU, including livestreamer Anthime “Tim” Gionet aka Baked Alaska in 2019 and Vincent James Foxx in 2020. At the time of their ASU-CRU speeches, Gionet was already a known neo-nazi and appeared as a speaker at Unite the Right while Foxx was a propagandist for the neo-Nazi street-fighting gang Rise Above Movement through his racist media outlet, The Red Elephants. Today, Gionet faces a list of charges for his role in the January 6 insurrection, assaulting a restaurant employee, and defacing a Hanukkah display while Foxx continues to run his white supremacist propaganda outlet.

At Foxx’s ASU-CRU speech, the blue America First flag of the white nationalist “groyper” movement can be seen draped over the makeshift podium. Before regularly displaying the flag of Nick Fuentes loyalists, the college group waved the Kekistan flag.

Other guests invited to the college campus by CRU include leader of the wannabe militia AZ Patriots, Jennifer Harrison and #Pizzagate promoter Mike Cernovich. CRU regularly hosting far-right extremists and explicit white supremacists hasn’t kept the Arizona Republican Party away from the student group. Secretary of State candidate and QAnon-promoting Oath Keeper Mark Finchem, Senate candidate Blake Masters, Superintendent candidate Tom Horne, former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar have all allied with College Republicans United.

The Patriot Party of Arizona, a militia-heavy PAC and wannabe political party, also has some connections to ASU-CRU. Thomas advocates for people to join the Patriot Party, appears as an administrator for their Facebook group, and their PAC has paid both Thomas and the College Republicans LLC.

When rumors circulated that Kyle Rittenhouse would be attending ASU, there was immediate pushback. During his trial, Rittenhouse had claimed on the witness stand he was attending the nursing program at the University. This was a lie and Rittenhouse later rolled back his comments to then claim he was intending to enroll, which was also a lie. Rittenhouse never became an ASU student, but CRU helped to raise funds for him and organized a protest with Students for Kari Lake in support of his possible attendance.

Turnout included a mix of Lake signs and a masked man holding up a sign with photos of the corpses of Rittenhouse’s victims. The text on the sign read: “GET FUCKED BOTTOM TEXT.” The pro-Rittenhouse rally earned ASU-CRU an interview on Fox & Friends.

ASU-CRU bringing Jared Taylor to campus on September 2 adds to their long tradition of hosting white supremacists and neo-nazis. Local collective group, Phoenix Anarchist Collective, is already calling on ASU to deny Taylor a platform at the school. Taylor’s event will occur in one of the main student hubs described as “the living room of the campus.” Even other conservative student organizations on campus are condemning the event with the ASU College Republicans releasing a statement calling ASU-CRU “bigoted,” and “making bedfellows with racists,” by hosting Taylor.

Taylor and CRU are charging up to $20 for tickets, which were removed from Eventbrite for violating their Terms of Service. Despite having a similar Terms of Service, Arizona-based ticket company BAMM Tickets is currently hosting the tickets for the white supremacist speaker. LCRW reached out to BAMM Tickets and founder/manager Aaron Childs, but has (so far) received no response. Childs locked his Instagram account shortly after being emailed.

The University previously said ASU-CRU was being investigated for possible violation of the student code of conduct, but a recent club fair shows CRU tabling with the blue America First flag of the white nationalist “groyper” movement draped across their booth. An ASU spokesperson also told LCRW that the self-described groyper student group “is currently a recognized student organization” at the college.