Former MSU YAF leader explains why controversial speaker not coming

Jared Taylor, a white supremacist who heads a group called American Renaissance, will not speak at Michigan State University in March.

Young Americans for Freedom’s MSU chapter had announced plans a month ago on its blog to host Taylor on campus on March 19. But now YAF has canceled the event, apparently because the national YAF organization threatened to pull the MSU group’s charter if it brought in Taylor.

“[YAF National] Chairman Erik Johnson’s excuse was that YAF does not officially recognize multi-culturalism as a threat to the United States,” wrote Kyle Bristow, the former chair of MSU YAF, on the American Renaissance Web site Friday.

Taylor and American Renaissance maintain that whites are superior to people of color. In Bristow’s post, he claimed to have connected Taylor with an East Lansing activist who was willing to host him in the area. Who that person is and when and if such a Michigan appearance by Taylor will happen are up in the air.

Revocation of the charter from the national organization would have made MSU’s YAF chapter no longer eligible to be a registered student organization. As such, the group is allowed the use of campus facilities free of charge, access to security without charge and a university bank account.

This is the first hint the national organization has taken issue with the MSU group’s programs. Last spring, the Southern Poverty Law Center listed the MSU chapter as a “hate group” on its annual compilation of such groups. The national YAF organization took out an ad in the campus newspaper, the State News, supporting the campus chapter and saying it saw nothing racist in the events that had been sponsored by the chapter. Those include hosting anti-immigration leader Chris Simcox of the Minuteman Civilian Defense Corps, planning a “Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day” game and hosting anti-immigrant and anti-gay Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo.

Bristow also claimed the administration at MSU “mysteriously” made the lecture hall where the Taylor event would be held unavailable. Bristow claimed that lecture hall was the only place on the campus MSU that the administration would allow the speech.

But MSU spokesman Terry Denbow denied that allegation. “No inappropriate or unnecessary obstacles were put in the way,” Denbow said. “One person’s practices and policies are another person’s obstacles.”