Administrators at the University of Maryland are claiming “no involvement” in the cancellation of a scheduled MILO event despite a forced last minute security fee increase and venue change.
A statement sent to Breitbart News by administrators at the University of Maryland claimed that the university played no role in the cancellation of an upcoming stop of the Dangerous Faggot Tour.
The statement also claims that the public University of Maryland “thrives on [the] respectful exchange of ideas and opinions” and that the institution fully supports “the fundamental right to freedom of speech.”
The University of Maryland was not involved in the decision to invite Milo Yiannopoulos to speak on campus. He was invited by Terps For Trump, a student-led organization comprised of undergraduate students. We also have no involvement in the cancellation of this student-invited speaker. As an institution that thrives on respectful exchange of ideas and opinions, we support the fundamental right to freedom of speech.
Despite these on-paper commitments to freedom of speech, administrators forced students organizers at the last minute to raise an additional $2,000 in security funds after they forced the event to change venues out of concerns for public safety.
I wrote on Monday about the University of Maryland’s potential violation of a 1992 Supreme Court case which declared that public institutions that determine event security fees based upon an official’s subjective determination of “the amount of hostility likely to be created by the speech based on its content” are infringing upon a group or individual’s First Amendment right to free speech.
Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity for Breitbart. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart.com