Spencer Finley – Staff Writer
SJF5814@psu.edu

My name is Spencer Finley. I am a senior and a political science major at Penn State Behrend. I
am the President of the Behrend Political Society, the Vice President of the Model United
Nations, the Vice President of the College Democrats, and a Staff Writer for the Behrend
Beacon. I am writing because I would like to express, in the strongest possible terms, my deep
displeasure with our university for deciding to host speaker Mr. Gavin McInnes, founder of the
Proud Boys and prominent alt-right figure, along with another inflammatory, far-right agitator,
Mr. Alex Stein. As a Jewish student and as the son of a soldier in the United States Army, I
cannot condemn strongly enough University Park’s decision to host Mr. McInnes and Mr. Stein.
Mr. McInnes is the founder of the Proud Boys. The Proud Boys are an alt-right, anti-government
militia group. They often use violent means in attempts to attain their political objectives or
intimidate their opposition; the Southern Poverty Law Center released a statement regarding
the participation of Proud Boys in the January 6 attack that, “Their activities are focused on
mitigating the perceived threat of groups they consider their political enemies — not through
the electoral process or other forms of democratic participation, but through violence and the
threat of violence.”
The SPLC explains that despite a surface-level rejection of white nationalism, the Proud Boys
are still a racist organization committed to upholding white supremacist ideas-they claim that
“they do not define national belonging by race, and that they simply want to preserve Western
culture. But, for the Proud Boys, Western culture is European, Christian, and governed by strict
adherence to “traditional” notions of gender. People from outside of these groups, or who
believe in the equality of all genders, are viewed as existential threats to Western nations. They
possess special hostility for Islam, immigrants, “multiculturalists,” and, particularly since 2020,
Black Lives Matter activists. As the child of a soldier in the United States Army, it hurts that my
university would pay a speaker who has actively fought to overthrow the United States
government which my father, and to a lesser extent my whole family, have sacrificed so much
to defend.
Mr. McInnes has, on numerous occasions, made remarks disparaging various peoples, including
women, Jews, and Muslims, and, as mentioned previously, has claimed that Western culture is
superior to all others. Of Jews, he has blamed them for numerous world problems, including
World War II and the Holodomor; the Times of Israel reports him as saying “Wasn’t the Treaty
of Versailles, wasn’t that disproportionately influenced by Jewish intellectuals?” He further
stated that “I think it was ten million Ukrainians who were killed. That was by Jews. That was by
Marxist, Stalinist, left-wing, commie, socialist Jews “.
He has also repeatedly said that women belong in the home. For example, on one occasion, he
said “Maybe the reason I’m sexist is because women are dumb. No, I’m just kidding, ladies. But
you do tend to not thrive in certain areas – like writing.” He also has made many bigoted
remarks against Muslims; he said that “I’m not a fan of Islam. I think it’s fair to call me
Islamophobic.” Despite the Proud Boys rejecting- at the surface level anyways- white
nationalism, his ideas and his organization have served as an introduction to the alt-right and
neo-Naziism.
According to the SPLC, “White nationalists and neo-Nazis themselves have cited McInnes as a
gateway to the alt-right. On ‘The Southern AF Podcast’ one former Proud Boy who went on to
embrace white nationalism said he was originally drawn to the group because of its ‘pro-white

Spencer Finley
SJF5814@psu.edu
Staff writer
sentiment.’ ‘All his jokes, all his content when I first started listening to him,’ he said of
McInnes, ‘was all freakin’ alt-right stuff and racial issues and funny, comedic ways to like try to
point out that white civilization has been superior.’”
Significantly, the SPLC says, “Many Proud Boys like him have moved on to more extreme groups
and ideologies.” As a Jewish student, and as a conscientious human, I cannot condone my
school hosting a speaker who has perpetuated antisemitic tropes and who has disparaged other
marginalized groups.
Another argument used by defenders of McInnes’s appearance at University Park is that it
upholds free speech, and that we need to be listening to people with different perspectives.
Frankly, I believe this argument to be either ignorant or given in bad faith.
I am a staunch defender of free speech. I even recognize hate speech as free speech- after all, if
what someone is saying is not controversial, then it does not need to be protected. However,
there is a difference, and a large one at that, between free speech and encouragement of
dangerous and hateful rhetoric.
A committee does not decide whether or not someone has the ability to exercise their
Constitutional freedom to speak their conscience; a committee did, however, have to decide to
invite and pay Mr. McInnes and Stein. We are not obligated to host Mr. McInnes by some all-
encompassing banner of free speech.
Free speech merely means that the government cannot arrest someone for the things that they
have said. It does not mean that we are obligated to host, much less to pay, a hateful figure at
our university. Nor are we obligated to support his message in what is arguably the most
meaningful way that it can be supported- with money. By hosting him and by paying him,
University Park has tacitly endorsed Mr. McInnes’s message of bigotry, hate, and violence. I can
only hope that the university decides to do better in the future.