On Nov. 11, the Wayne State campus was greeted with sidewalk chalk messaging, although the message may not have been so sweet. The chalk, which was found between Connell Hall and the humanities building, spoke in support of White Nationalist live streamer Nick Fuentes, stating, “Nick Fuentes is right ab Israel”, “America First” and “Nick Fuentes is right”. Despite faculty and students walking past the chalk messaging, the sidewalk chalk was not removed until the following day.
“I mean, I don’t like Nick Fuentes, so it wasn’t great to see, but, it wasn’t surprising given where we are. I thought it was kind of weird because it was ‘Nick Fuentes was right’ and then ‘America First’, and it was just that repeated over and over again, that was the whole message,” said freshmen majoring in digital film production & theory, Leah McKay.
Fuentes began his show “America First” on YouTube and conversative media company Right Side Broadcasting Network in 2017 while a freshman at Boston University. However, in Feb. 2020, according to Newsweek, Fuentes’ YouTube channel was permanently banned for, “multiple or severe violations of YouTube’s policy prohibiting hate speech.” This was the beginning of various bans from other social media websites such as Twitch, Reddit, Facebook, Spotify, DLive and Instagram.
The chalk on campus speaking in support of Fuentes was written without clearance or permission from the dean of students, Cody Westerhold.
“Obviously, those are not things that we want to promote. We don’t want those things to happen to students on campus, so we do have policies in place that are there to help support students who have been negatively impacted by any type of harassment, or discrimination, or hate speech,” Westerhold said.
The messaging opens dialogue on campus for the distinction between freedom of speech and hate speech, as well as the repercussions that could come with those.
“I feel like restrictions can lead to more and more extreme measures of censorship, and that’s, like, the whole freedom of speech debate. But I do think that consequences need to be more readily available for people that exploit freedom of speech to spread hateful messages,” McKay said. “There needs to be an awareness that you can spread these hateful messages, but you will suffer consequences from it. You can’t just say it freely just because you have the right to say anything.”
Westerhold said that he encourages students use of their first amendment right to free speech and to communicate with the faculty.
“What I would encourage any student to do is, if they feel that there’s something there, to report that. To share that with us. We can’t address problems if we don’t know there’s a problem… Let it be known. We don’t want people on campus to feel unsafe. We’re here. We have people here to help out with that, so we can respond to whatever it is,” Westerhold said.
