Opinion: Silence is not an option in response to Proud Boys event at Penn State

There is a student-sponsored speech by a leader of the Proud Boys scheduled for the Penn State campus on Oct. 24.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has described the Proud Boys as a right-wing extremist group with a violent agenda. They are misogynistic, Islamophobic, transphobic and anti-immigration. Some members espouse white supremacist and antisemitic ideologies. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Proud Boys instigated violence in the Pacific Northwest in 2019-2020. Some members engaged in violence in Charlottesville and on January 6th.

The Proud Boys target alienated young men struggling to find themselves and a sense of community. University campuses are a fertile ground for recruitment.

As a semi-public university, Penn State would risk violating the First Amendment if it canceled the speech. Past violent behavior is not sufficient legal grounds for a prior restraint on speech. And university censorship — from the right or the left — is dangerous territory.

But the university cannot fail to act. Their own diversity, equity, and inclusion statement obligates them to “foster and maintain a safe environment of respect and inclusion.”

Hate speech, anti-democratic values, bigotry and violence have infected our public lives and political discourse. Part of Penn State’s mission is to prepare students for civic life. I hope curious attendees of the speech have learned at Penn State to reject extremism and intolerance. But I fear some will succumb to the power of fear, anger and hatred. History proves that when extremist movements metastasize, they can bring down democracies.

First, PSU must protect the First Amendment rights of protesters. I urge those protesters to do so peacefully; blocking attendance, or disrupting the speech, would play into the Proud Boys’ hands.

Second, the university should issue an unequivocal statement condemning hate groups, hate speech, insurrectionism, and threats to marginalized communities. Penn State needs to tell vulnerable students, faculty, and staff, “We stand with you against hatred.” Three PSU administrators did post a statement Tuesday stating “we can emphatically say that our University neither supports nor condones the vitriolic and hateful language … used by these speakers in the past, which is contrary to the University’s fundamental values of inclusion and mutual respect.”

Third, Penn State should implement an interdisciplinary program, with Penn State Law, and the psychology, sociology, history, political science, communication, and other departments, to study hate, extremism, domestic terrorism, and hate group recruitment.

Fourth, while I do not think the university can interdict the speech, I question whether it is necessary and proper to allocate public funds to fund hate speech. The university should re-examine the policy that resulted in its funding of a Proud Boys speech.

In the face of threats to our democracy, it is not enough for members of our university community to say, “that’s not me.” It’s not enough for any of us to say, “I’m not racist, misogynistic, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, or anti-LGBTQ.” That bar is too low. At a minimum, we must speak out against hate-fueled and insurrectionist speech. Silence is not an option.

Penn State must hold itself and its students to a higher standard. In our search for knowledge, we must also work for the larger social good, including political stability. We must stop destructive ideology from gaining a greater foothold.

Through words and deeds, the Proud Boys have told us who they are. The question now is who are we? When Penn Staters chant, “We Are...” let’s recommit to “we,” meaning all of us.