A&M on thin legal ground over rally

‘White Lives Matter’ organizer says he may sue over cancellation.

When a white nationalist spoke at Texas A&M University in December, school officials said they were duty-bound to tolerate free speech, even speech they considered repugnant.

A&M changed its policy later to bar outside people from using on-campus conference rooms without sponsorship of a university-sanctioned group. No such requirement applies to outdoor events at several free-speech zones on the College Station campus, but the university cited safety concerns Monday in canceling a far-right rally that had been booked through its events staff for next month.

Preston Wiginton, who had organized the rally and lined up use of Rudder Plaza in the heart of campus without a university sponsor, told the American-Statesman on Tuesday that half of him wants to sue A&M and the other half doesn’t want to bother because “A&M, the Texas Legislature and many white people have proven to me that whites accept their own demise.”

He said he is pursuing a lawsuit and might walk down a public street through campus with activists and others who had planned to attend the “White Lives Matter” rally that was canceled.

Whether A&M’s cancellation of the event was a violation of Wiginton’s right to free speech would ultimately be up to the courts. But school officials who gathered in President Michael Young’s office on Monday, where the decision was made, were well aware that pulling the plug on the rally could expose the university to legal attack, according to two well-placed sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t autho-