I was listening to a radio program this morning where they were discussing the topic of free speech, but this event in particular. In this particular case, Richard Spencer was not invited to speak at the university, rather, he signed up for space there and whatever the rules of the university, they could not deny his request. I believe this was also the case at a university in Texas awhile back. I think this will result in universities across the country disallowing use of their space from outside groups without the sponsorship of someone that attends/works at the university.
I've listened to the reasoning for people that either support or oppose him speaking and I think both sides make some valid points. For instance, he only has to pay $10,000 for security, which is paltry to what the university and city have to spend in order to police the element he brings to the city (they estimated about $500,000). When the neo-Nazis/white supremacists outnumbered counter-protesters, someone died. In most of cases when the counter-protesters outnumbering racists, it ends peacefully. He wishes to cause trouble and wants violence (that's why some of them are happy Heather Heyer died), so people need to stop pretending that these are people that simply have ugly views.
However, I was not as convinced by the people arguing that hate speech is not free speech because it really is. I think there is something to be gained by wiping the floor with their views and showing how idiotic and unwanted their beliefs are in the United States. There was one speaker that made a good point that we shouldn't simply prevent them from speaking because that doesn't make their views or ideas go away, at the same time he mentioned that empirically, disruption does have some affect on preventing the propagation of these views (which if they really did propagate, would result in a truly unfree society). But again, there is no silver bullet when it comes to these discussions. But there is still no good argument for saying, "Just ignore it," because that's only something you can say when you're not the target of that hate speech.
I recently saw a news story about lawmakers wanting to make disruption illegal, but that actually curtails free speech also. He made the point that you should be able to defend yourself against hecklers, much like a comedian must be able to deal with people that boo their act during a show. I think the main point is that disruption should not prevent the speech of others, but disruption in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing.
Those that walk around thinking the issue has a simple solution, probably have not thought about it much, in my opinion. I think the Constitution is always about edge cases, this is an edge case, and I believe this is the very reason we have a Bill of Rights. However, I dislike the groups that invite the likes of far-right elements claiming it is purely based on free speech because I've never seen them invite fools preaching Hotepism and other ridiculous Black Israelite-type garbage... although that would be quite the panel.
