Head of Controversial Minutemen Group Speaks at MSU – Again

EAST LANSING — With a heavy police presence and tight security  Chris Simcox of the controversial Minutemen Civilian Defense Corps, an anti-immigration group,  spoke to about 25 supporters Tuesday on the Michigan State University campus.

At least 15 officers were on duty at Conrad Hall and a dozen MSU officials were also present for the event, sponsored by the campus chapter of the  conservative  group Young Americans for Freedom (YAF).  It was the second time this year Simcox has been at MSU. In April,  protesters disrupted his  talk  and eventually were kicked out of the building, leaving Simcox and a group of supporters to discuss illegal immigration. Five people were arrested.

There were no protests or disruptions Tuesday, but anyone entering the building had to walk through metal detectors. Before the building was opened for participants, a police dog was taken through.  Outside,  portable  lights flooded the grounds surrounding Conrad.

Continued -MSU has been taking heat from other student groups for allowing YAF to bring in Simcox and other speakers with controversial messages, and supporting the events by paying for security. MSU has refused to release how much in taxpayer funds it expended in April at the Simcox event, but a Freedom of Information Act document shows it  spent $2,510 to rent, transport and set up metal detectors provided by CEIA USA of Twinsburg, Ohio. MSU officials were unable to provide an accounting of how much money was spent in security measures on last night’s event. A spokesperson for the university said the bigger question is whether the spending was necessary for protecting the safety of those in attendance, and MSU feels that it was. Officials have defended the YAF events — where some speakers have also denounced Muslims and homosexuals — as a matter of free speech and intellectual freedom. 

According to a blog post by Young Americans for Freedom on Oct. 27 announcing Simcox’s appearance, the controversial speaker was supposed to discuss “how Islamic terrorists could exploit our porous borders to gain access to our country and attack our people.” Instead, Simcox spoke for 50 minutes about civic responsibility.

Simcox’s group has come under fire both from within its ranks, with questions about where the money it raises is going, and from outside as well. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which listed Young Americans for Freedom at MSU as a hate group in April, listed Simcox and the Minutemen as a “Nativist Extremist” group. That is a new category the law center and experts on the hate movement have created to describe Simcox and his group, which  runs vigilante patrols on the Mexican border and says it has also started doing so on the border with Canada. 

Simcox now claims to be concerned about illegal immigration, but in the past he has claimed the concern was that the Chinese Army was conducting military exercises on the American-Mexican border, said Mark Potok, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project.

Simcox’s speech was paid for by a grant from the Leadership Institute in Virginia. The Leadership Institute is a training ground for young conservative activists, created in 1979. It claims to have trained more than 60,000 young conservatives since its creation. According to the group’s 990 IRS filing from 2006, the most recently available filing, the group had an income of $12.7 million, a staff of 58 and had spent just over $3.9 million helping fund and create conservative student groups and newspapers.

According to the MSU campus paper the State News, Simcox was paid $2,890 for his appearance. Of that, $1,500 was for a personal stipend and the rest  covered costs, such as airfare.

Simcox and YAF supporters  appeared to expect protests Tuesday. Standing at the podium the former kindergarten teacher clicked a video camera on. “I’m going to turn this on just in anticipation of a late-arriving crowd,” he said. Every time the doors to the auditorium opened, YAF members turned around to see who was entering.

Simcox praised YAF for inviting him back to MSU and for “having the courage to stand in the face of hate which is very prevalent, it seems like, on college campuses, which is a place where  it should be free for a lot things like for the exchange of ideas.”

“Our citizenship and our sovereignty seem to be in question,” Simcox told the crowd. “What is our duty as citizens?”

Simcox went on to lambaste voter apathy, comparing Americans today with colonists just before the Revolutionary War, claiming they were “content being subjects.” He also attacked public officials for not representing the people, and the mainstream media, saying it was  hiding information from the public. He spoke specifically about the presidential candidates and how the media has focused on a few candidates in an attempt to garner more advertising dollars. 

A separate event hosted by the MSU student group Chicanos Y Latinos Unidas had an attendance of 50 people. Those at that event, advisor for CLU Todd Mireles said by email, watched the award-winning documentary “Crossing Arizona.”