Spencer’s camp to drop OSU suit
CINCINNATI — A new attorney for white nationalist Richard Spencer’s campus-tour efforts said Tuesday he plans to drop a lawsuit against Ohio State University but will continue a suit against the University of Cincinnati.
Spencer spoke Monday at Michigan State University amid protests, but the rest of his campus-tour plans have bogged down because of lawsuits and disagreements on safety issues.
James Kolenich of suburban Cincinnati recently became lead counsel in the two lawsuits when Michigan attorney Kyle Bristow abruptly withdrew after waging lawsuits against a series of U.S. schools for months.
Bristow, who said he had been unfairly vilified in media reports, sued Ohio State on behalf of tour organizer Cameron Padgett after the school refused last year to book Spencer. Kolenich said Padgett decided to drop the Ohio State case, but the two will pursue the Cincinnati case, which is over a security fee.
“I expect to be victorious there,” he told The Associated Press, saying there have been settlement discussions.
A University of Cincinnati spokesman didn’t respond immediately for comment, and an OSU spokesman didn’t have an immediate comment Tuesday.
Spencer advocates a white “ethno-state” and espouses anti-Semitic and antiimmigrant beliefs.
The University of Cincinnati agreed in October to allow Spencer to speak; its board of trustees publicly condemned hate while citing the fundamental right to free speech at a public university.
However, Bristow sued in January after the school demanded a nearly $11,000 security fee, which it later said was a “mere fraction” of its expected costs. The case is pending before a federal judge.
Ohio State had countered the lawsuit it faced by pointing to deadly violence in the Charlottesville, Virginia, rally in August in which Spencer was a scheduled speaker, and his raucous October appearance at the University of Florida, where authorities estimated security costs at $600,000.
“The University determined that such an event could not be accommodated at Ohio State at this time without substantial risk to public safety and material and substantial disruption to the work and discipline of the University,” Ohio State had stated in its response to Padgett’s lawsuit.
Police said at least a dozen people were arrested Monday in East Lansing. Michigan State allowed Spencer to appear to settle a lawsuit, but the venue was an auditorium at a remote end of campus.
Students were on spring break, but hundreds of protesters turned out, shouting profanities at Spencer supporters and police. Officers formed lines outside the auditorium and wore helmets and clutched batons.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reported recently that Kolenich is representing organizers of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville who face federal charges, saying he was willing to get involved “to oppose Jewish influence in society.”