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Julia Robinson for The Chronicle

Richard Spencer, a leader of the white supremacist "alt-right" movement, visited the campus of Texas A&M U. at College Station last fall. The SPLC is offering guidance to students who oppose speakers with views like his.

For universities, the new academic year has nearly arrived. If its anything like last year, controversial speakers will be a consistent challenge for administrators and students alike.

More often than not, the speakers that generate the most controversy are those labeled right-wing reactionaries by their critics. Last fall, Richard Spencer, a white nationalist, launched a speaking tour to recruit college students to the alt-right, a loose group of white supremacists and online agitators. His speech at Texas A&M University at College Station saw protest become physical, a turn that would become common throughout the coming months.

The Southern Poverty Law Center wants to help students oppose hate speech without creating a spectacle that can be exploited.

During a visit to the University of California at Berkeley in February, the far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was greeted by masked protesters who smashed windows and set fires on the campus. Weeks earlier, a man was shot during a protest of a speech by Mr. Yiannopoulos at the University of Washington.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization that monitors hate groups, wants to reduce the number of these protests gone awry. To that end, the center, which also monitored cases of anti-immigrant and race-based harassment after the presidential election, has issued a 20-page report with advice for students on how best to respond when a controversial speaker from the alt-right comes to campus. The guide, titled "The Alt-Right on Campus: What Students Need to Know," is geared toward student activists, but it also has relevance to administrators and faculty members on dealing with contentious speakers. Here are a few highlights:

Just ignore the event.

The spectacles created by counterprotesters, says Lecia Brooks, the SPLCs outreach director, only serve to embolden the speakers and allow them to portray themselves as victims.

"The best response is not to show up at all," Ms. Brooks said. "It is the better strategy."

Thats the same advice Teresa Sullivan, president of the University of Virginia, gave to the UVa community regarding a gathering of white-nationalists in Charlottesville, planned for this Saturday.

"To approach the rally and confront the activists would only satisfy their craving for spectacle," she wrote. "They believe that your counterprotest helps their cause."

A similar approach was adopted at Texas A&M when Mr. Spencer came to its campus in December. University leaders organized a competing event, "Aggies United," away from Mr. Spencers speech, though police officers in riot gear still had to stop some protesters from trying to enter the building where he was speaking.

Ask college leaders to denounce the speaker.

While it might be tempting for administrators to try and cancel the event, that could lead to even more attention for the speaker, Ms. Brooks said. Thats what happened at Auburn University when Mr. Spencer visited its campus in April. The university had tried to prevent him from speaking, but a judge ruled against that decision. Ms. Brooks said the event attracted more attention as a result.

Or consider Berkeleys juggling of Ann Coulters ultimately canceled speech. That caused plenty headaches, even though she never spoke at the campus.

Instead, the SPLC report suggests that student activists ask the administration to denounce the speakers message. Michael K. Young, the Texas A&M president, called Mr. Spencers racist message "beneath contempt" when the white nationalist visited that campus.

Talk to the group hosting the event.

Its easy to forget that these speakers dont materialize out of thin air, but rather are invited often by other students, who can have mixed motives. The views of students who invite a controversial speaker may not correspond with those of the speaker.

That was the case when Mr. Yiannopoulos visited the University of Washington. A leader of the College Republicans chapter that had invited him told The Chronicle that student organizers had wanted a tamer conservative speaker, Ben Shapiro, to speak at the college, but they couldnt afford his $10,000 fee. Mr. Yiannopoulos came free of charge.

And the dean of students at Wake Forest University was able to convince the College Republicans there to bring in Roger Stone instead of Mr. Yiannopoulos. The groups goal had really been to get more conservative viewpoints on campus, not necessarily to endorse Mr. Yiannopoulos.

The Southern Poverty Law Center encourages people to try and suss out the host groups motivation for bringing a controversial speaker to campus. For more of its insights, including a whos who in the alt-right and other tips on how to quell the storm a controversial speaker brings, check out the full report.

Chris Quintana is a breaking-news reporter. Follow him on Twitter @cquintanadc or email him at chris.quintana@chronicle.com.

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An Anti-Hate Group Has This Advice for When the Alt-Right Comes to Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

The tensions escalated this spring, when PayPal restricted the accounts of several prominent far-right figures, including Hunter Wallace, a white nationalist blogger, and Kyle Chapman, an alt-right personality known as Based Stickman. In a statement, PayPal said that its policy was not to allow our services to be used for activities that promote hate, violence or racial intolerance.

A similar fight occurred in July when Patreon and GoFundMe, two crowdfunding sites, banned several accounts associated with the alt-right. One of them was used by Lauren Southern, a Canadian activist and journalist who made a name for herself with inflammatory stunts like disrupting a refugee rescue mission in the Mediterranean Sea. Patreon banned Ms. Southerns account after deciding that her activities were likely to cause loss of life, but emphasized that it was the nature of Ms. Southerns work, not the political views behind it, that had violated its terms.

The decision to remove a creator page has nothing to do with politics and ideology, Jack Conte, Patreons chief executive, said in a YouTube video about the incident.

Some company decisions are more explicitly political. At Airbnb last week, the company discovered that several writers and activists affiliated with The Daily Stormer, a white supremacy website, had used its website to book lodging for a right-wing rally in Charlottesville, Va., and were planning to use rented houses as after-party venues. Airbnb officials canceled the bookings and deleted the users accounts, saying that the gatherings violated the companys community commitment.

YouTube, which hosts a thriving community of right-wing personalities and, not coincidentally, is owned by Google has come under particularly aggressive criticism from conservative activists, who have accused the site of placing them in a ghetto by suppressing their videos.

This month, YouTube announced a new slate of content policies that subjected controversial religious or supremacist content to additional restrictions, including hiding those videos from user recommendations. The policies did not explicitly mention any political ideology, but conspiracists at sites like Infowars and Breitbart cried foul, claiming that YouTubes true intent was to stop the spread of right-wing views. One far-right journalist, Mike Cernovich, announced on Twitter that he was planning a protest outside Googles offices.

Were just doing what the left has done for a while, Mr. Cernovich told me. You use activist tactics to apply pressure to corporations, and the corporations respond.

Its a tech companys right, of course, to bar whomever it wishes. The First Amendment, often cited by right-wing activists as a bulwark against censorship, does not apply to the activities of companies, and tech companies almost always have terms in the fine print that give them the right to cut off access to users for any reason.

But the latest wave of right-wing activism has still forced the hands of large Silicon Valley companies, many of which have tried to avoid the appearance of partisanship even as they promote progressive values.

The alt-right isnt necessarily wrong when it claims, as its followers often do, that Silicon Valley is steeped in social liberalism. These are companies that emerged out of Bay Area counterculture, that sponsor annual floats in gay pride parades and hang Black Lives Matter signs on the walls of their offices. Silicon Valleys policy preferences arent always liberal, but tech executives routinely side with progressives on hot-button social issues like immigration, the Paris climate accords, and President Trumps recent decision to bar transgender people from military service. In todays political climate, these are partisan positions, and its no big shock that they have drawn suspicion from the other side.

There is a certain poetic justice in the alt-right, largely an internet-based political movement, turning against the companies that enabled it in the first place. Like most modern political movements, the alt-right relies on tech platforms like YouTube and Twitter to rally supporters, collect donations and organize gatherings. In that sense, Silicon Valley progressivism isnt just an ideological offense to the alt-right its an operational threat.

In an attempt to build a buffer against censorship, some alt-right activists have begun creating their own services. Cody Wilson, who describes himself as a techno-anarchist, recently opened Hatreon, a crowdfunding site that bills itself as a free-speech alternative to Patreon. Gab, a Twitter clone, was started last year after Twitter banned several conservative users. RootBocks, a right-wing Kickstarter knockoff, bills itself as a crowdfunding site that wont shut you down because of your beliefs.

These companies are still tiny by Silicon Valley standards, but their supporters say that one day they could serve as the foundation for a kind of parallel right-wing internet where all speech is allowed, no matter how noxious or incendiary.

Its unlikely that any alt-right protest will make a dent in the bottom lines of multibillion-dollar Silicon Valley behemoths. But by forcing these companies to take sides in an emerging culture war, these activists have already achieved a kind of perverse goal. They have found a new punching bag, and they have proved that in the hyper-polarized Trump era, there is no such thing as neutrality.

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The Alt-Right Finds a New Enemy in Silicon Valley - New York Times

By Martese Johnson and Aryn Frazier By Martese Johnson and Aryn Frazier August 8 at 3:17 PM

Martese Johnson graduated in 2016 from the University of Virginia with a bachelors degree in Italian studies. Aryn Frazier graduated from U-Va. this year with a bachelors in African American and African studies. In March 2015, Johnson, who is African American, was bloodied during an arrest outside a Charlottesville bar that drew widespread attention amid national debate about race and law enforcement. Frazier was a leader in the U-Va. Black Student Alliance and participated in protests over how Johnson was treated. Here, the two alumni write about a rally expected in Charlottesville on Saturday.

In early July, an estimated 50 members of the Ku Klux Klan marched down the streets of Charlottesville. They were met by the fierce resistance of nearly 1,000 protesters who openly denounced the vitriol and hatred for which the Klan stands. The appearance of Klansmen dressed in white robes shouting epithets in the progressive college town made headlines across the nation.

This week, an even larger contingent of white nationalists will descend on the picturesque city for the Unite the Right Rally. The presence of major alt-right leaders will probably bring even more media spotlight and news coverage than did the rally in July.

But it shouldnt.

This is not because blatant demonstrations of hate no longer matter in 2017 the rationale is actually quite the opposite.

The very existence of the KKK, the hatred for which it stands, and the vitriol that its members spew is absolutely important. It is important because it reminds people that, for as far as weve come and as many minds as have been changed, we still have quite a long way to go. The Klans sustained existence is important because it challenges us to be vigilant in our beliefs and to find inventive, invigorating ways to disseminate our messages about the civil and human rights work this country still has left to do. Its existence keeps us alert to both present and lurking dangers.

However, the diminished Klan itself is not what worries us. Instead, we are concerned about their ideological heirs who hide in plain sight without the distinguishing hoods and robes who walk in and out of government buildings, lobbying firms, think tanks and corporations day in and day out.

These are the people at the root of our gravest concerns: disproportionate poverty, gentrification, housing and education inequity, and the killing and killing and killing of black and brown people.

During the July rally in Charlottesville, the media coverage centered on the fact that 50 people who marched in support of the Klan were met by opposition from many more people who were, frankly, demonstrating what ought be considered common human decency.

Such ephemeral coverage means that our deeply institutionalized, more pressing concerns cannot have the spotlight that they so desperately need. Instead, sensationalized stories about the re-emergence of the KKK become the primary focus of some of our activists, organizers and influencers who light up social media with impassioned if misdirected tweets highlighting how protesters outnumbered the KKK sympathizers.

While this may seem to convey that our recent attempts to combat racial injustice have proven ineffectual, that is far from the truth. The truth is that our newfound ability to create media-fueled grassroots movements has bolstered our likelihood of securing progressive change in this new era. We have gained a key strength from our efforts, and now it is time to properly utilize it.

We know what it takes to get news coverage. And this is where we get to the part the media has to play in this. There is much talk about responsible journalism these days and what exactly it looks like. An easy place to start is in Charlottesville on Saturday. Cover the alt-right march.

But the media should also cover the outcomes of the myriad town halls called to garner solutions to issues of racial injustice that either followed or preceded this most recent display of bigotry. Inform viewers of whether their elected and appointed officials are simply paying lip service to these causes and using time and money to seem as though they are addressing the problems everyday citizens and citizen-activists have brought to their attention, or if they are actually moving policy and practices to be more in line with equality and justice.

Without a major shift in the stories that are covered extensively, we will develop further into a society duped by distraction, rendered immobile by our indignation at the KKK and alt-right in Charlottesville instead of the true villains in our local, state and national politics.

The Ku Klux Klan and the alt-right, for all the individualized danger and trauma they represent and inflict, stands simply as a spawn of that real, quiet, but deadly injustice. By focusing on them, we are allocating our attention and resources to a pawn rather than the true enemy.

And that is not good for us any of us in the long run.

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Why the upcoming alt-right rally in Charlottesville may be less important than we think - Washington Post

Donald Trump and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Donald Trump has scrambled the political spectrum in certain ways, and one of them has been to introduce a new set of players to the national scene. Nationalists or populists (as they now call themselves), or the alt-right (as they used to call themselves), have been vying with traditional Republicans for control of the Trump administration. The nationalists tend to be pro-Russia, virulently anti-immigrant, race-centric, and conspiratorial in their thinking. Their current project is a political war against National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, a conventional Republican who displaced the nationalist Michael Flynn. The nationalist war against McMaster has included waves of Russian social-media bots, leaks placed in the nationalist organ Breitbart, and undisguised anti-Semitism.

Most observers outside the nationalist wing have treated McMaster as the sympathetic party in the conflict. The Intercepts Glenn Greenwald is a notable exception. Greenwald has depicted the conflict, much like the nationalists themselves have, as the machinations of the deep state to prevent the authentic, democratically legitimate populist representatives of Trumpism from exerting their rightful authority. Greenwald himself is not a nationalist, and is certainly not a bigot, but the episode has revealed a left-wingers idiosyncratic sympathy for the most odious characters on the right.

Greenwald lays out his thinking in a deeply, if inadvertently, revealing column denouncing anti-Trump saboteurs in the deep state.

The foundation of Greenwalds worldview on this issue and nearly everything else is that the United States and its national-security apparatus is the greatest force for evil in the world. Who has brought more death, and suffering, and tyranny to the world over the last six decades, he writes, than the U.S. National Security State? (This six-decade period of time includes Maos regime in China, which killed 45 to 75 million people, as well as the Khmer Rouge and several decades of the Soviet Union.) In Greenwalds mind, the ultimate expression of American evil is and always will be neoconservatism. Its hard, for instance, to imagine any group that has done more harm, and ushered in more evil, than the Bush-era neocons with whom Democrats are now openly aligning, he argues.

The neoconservatives have lined up against Trump, and many Democrats agree with them on certain issues. Since the neocons represent maximal evil in the world, any opponent of theirs must be, in Greenwalds calculus, the lesser evil. His construction that its hard to imagine any worse faction than the neocons is especially telling. However dangerous or rancid figures like Steve Bannon or Michael Flynn may be, the possibility that they could match the evil of the neocons is literally beyond the capacity of his brain to imagine.

A second source of Greenwalds sympathy for the nationalists is their populism. The nationalists style themselves as outsiders beset by powerful, self-interested networks of hidden foes. And while their racism is not his cup of tea, Greenwald shares the same broad view of his enemies.

Trump advocated a slew of policies that attacked the most sacred prongs of long-standing bipartisan Washington consensus, argues Greenwald. As a result, he was (and continues to be) viewed as uniquely repellent by the neoliberal and neoconservative guardians of that consensus, along with their sprawling network of agencies, think tanks, financial policy organs, and media outlets used to implement their agenda (CIA, NSA, the Brookings/AEI think tank axis, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, etc.).

It is certainly true that all manner of elites disdain Trump. Whats striking is Greenwalds uncharitable reading of their motives, which closely tracks Trumps own portrayal of the situation. Many elites consider Trump too ignorant, lazy, impulsive, and bigoted for the job. Instead Greenwald presents their opposition as reflecting a fear that Trump threatens their wealth and power. (This despite the pro-elite tilt of his tax and regulatory policies which, in particular, make it astonishing that Greenwald would take at face value Trumps claim to threaten the interests of Wall Street and its financial policy organs.)

The opposition to Trump naturally shares a wide array of motives, as would any wide-ranging coalition. Greenwalds column consistently attributes to those opponents only the most repellant beliefs. He doesnt even consider the possibility that some people genuinely believe McMaster is a safe, responsible figure who might help dissuade the president from doing something terrible.

Greenwald emphasizes, Hank Paulson, former Goldman Sachs CEO and George W. Bushs Treasury Secretary, went to the pages of the Washington Post in mid-2016 to shower Clinton with praise and Trump with unbridled scorn, saying what he hated most about Trump was his refusal to consider cuts in entitlement spending (in contrast, presumably, to the Democrat he was endorsing). It is true that Trump promised not to cut entitlement spending. Greenwalds notion that this promise placed him presumably in contrast with Hillary Clinton ignores that fact that Clinton also promised to protect these programs.

The passage about entitlements appears deep in Paulsons op-ed, which Paulson began by lambasting Trump for encouraging ignorance, prejudice, fear and isolationism, among other flaws. Greenwald asserts that Paulson identifies Trumps hostility to cutting entitlements as what he hated most about the Republican nominee, but nothing in the op-ed indicates this is what Paulson hated most. Greenwald just made that part up.

The same concoction of motives is at work in Greenwalds contempt for McMaster and John Kelly, the new chief of staff. The pair of former generals have long been hailed by anti-Trump factions as the Serious, Responsible Adults in the Trump administration, primarily because they support militaristic policies such as the war in Afghanistan and intervention in Syria that are far more in line with official Washingtons bipartisan posture, he writes.

Note that primarily. Greenwald is arguing that news coverage treating them as competent managers, as opposed to the amateurish nationalists, is propaganda by the elite plumping for greater war in Afghanistan and Syria. He is implying that if Kelly and McMaster took more dovish positions on Afghanistan and Syria, their public image would be altogether different. Greenwald supplies no evidence for this premise. In fact, McMasters most acute policy struggle has been his efforts to maintain the Iran nuclear agreement, one which has placed him on the dovish side, against an established neoconservative position. Greenwald does not mention this issue, which fatally undermines his entire analysis.

The final point of overlap between Greenwald and the nationalists is their relatively sympathetic view of Russia. The nationalists admire Putin as a champion of white Christian culture against Islam, a predisposition Greenwald does not share at all. Greenwald has, however, defended Russias menacing of its neighbors, and repeatedly questioned its ties to WikiLeaks.

From the outset, he has reflexively discounted evidence of Russian intervention in the election. Democrats completely resurrect that Cold War McCarthyite kind of rhetoric not only to accuse Paul Manafort, who does have direct financial ties to certainly the pro the former pro-Russian leader of the Ukraine, he asserted last year. (Manafort did have financial ties to that leader, a fact that was obvious at the time and which Manafort no longer denies.) Democratic accusations that Trump had hidden ties with Russia were a smear tactic, unhinged, wild, elaborate conspiracy theories, a desperate excuse for their election defeat, and so on.

As evidence of Russian intervention piled up, Greenwalds line of defense has continued to retreat. When emails revealed a campaign meeting by Russians on the explicit promise of helping Trumps campaign, Greenwald brushed it off as politics as usual: I, personally, although its dirty, think all of these events are sort of the way politics works. Of course if youre in an important campaign and someone offers you incriminating information about your opponent, youre going to want it no matter where it comes from.

This closely tracks the Trump legal teams own defense of the Russia scandal, a fact that is probably coincidental. (There are only so many arguments to make.) Greenwald is not a racist, and is the opposite of a nationalist, and yet his worldview has brought him into close alignment with that of the alt-right. A Greenwaldian paranoid would see this quasi-alliance as a conspiracy. The reality of his warped defenses of Trump is merely that of a monomaniac unable to relinquish his obsessions.

While many people think Congress is enriching itself, its actually too poor in policy knowledge and resources to do much more than take orders.

Tensions are ramping up on the Korean peninsula.

The presidents attorney says Trump has never thought of firing the special counsel and has sent Mueller messages of appreciation.

A report suggests the White House wants to tap Rudy Giulianis colleague at a white-shoe firm.

In a race marred by negative ads, Senator Luther Strange has a positive spot thats got more shout-outs to conservative icons than you can count.

This is why Trump hasnt condemned the attack.

Oh, gosh.

House conservatives are (essentially) asking Paul Ryan to either drive America into default, or surrender his Speakers gavel.

With conservatives now threatening to take must-pass legislation hostage, they could get together with Trump and permanently end Democratic leverage.

Including admiring tweets and pictures of Trump on TV looking powerful.

In a policy reversal, the Justice Department now supports quick purges of infrequent voters, which especially affect minorities (and Democrats).

A bill can be tax reform, or it can pass exclusively with Republican votes. But it cant be both.

Despite inheriting a strong economy, Trump has lost significant ground with GOP voters, 200 days into his presidency.

The U.S. is helping Saudi Arabia tear apart its poorest neighbor.

He voted for Trumpcare and got Danny Tarkanian.

The hysterical response of Team Pence to reports his political team has contingency plans for 2020 illustrates the deep neuroses of the White House.

The city says the Justice Departments new qualifications for federal grant money are unauthorized and unconstitutional.

The extensive report, which concludes that human activity is driving climate change, is awaiting final approval by the administration.

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The Alt-Right and Glenn Greenwald Versus HR McMaster - New York Magazine

Members of the alt-rightare uniting against Google after it fired an engineer for writing what many media outlets are calling an anti-diversity manifesto. The document sparked outrage in Silicon Valley for claiming that biological differencesnot discriminationare the reason so few women have tech jobs.

Scattered throughout the 10-page memo are references to Googles left leaning political biases. James Damore, the author of Googles Ideological Echo Chamber memo, claims Google operates on a deep moral bias founded on its leftist political orientation. Googles left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence, he wrote.

This sentiment appears to have struck a cord with members of the alt-right, who feel Damores dismissal was unjust and politically driven. They are now flocking to Twitter to call for a ban against Google.

But outraged critics hoping to ban the tech giant face a difficult truth: Banning Google is like banning the interneta nearly impossible task, as some have already acknowledged.

Almost everyone in the United States uses one of Googles products on a daily basis, but it isnt until you consolidate its services that you recognize the companys remarkable digital footprint.

Lets begin with the heavy-hitters: Google Chrome and Google Search. Chrome is the most used web browsing service in the world, with just short of 60 percent of the desktop market share. It also tops numerous best web browsers charts for its stability and presentation. Even then, Chrome isnt the most difficult Google service to replace. There are a number of good alternatives out therein fact, many wont push your computer as hard as Chromebut youd be hard-pressed to find a faster and simpler platform for navigating the web.

Google Search (Google.com), on the other hand, is in a league of its own, garnishing more than 90 percent of all web search traffic. The truth (for most people) is that alternatives like Bing and Yahoo wont provide results as relevant as those presented by the de facto industry leader.

If you really wanted to ban Google, you could sacrifice convenience and use alternative search and web browsing services. But youd only have dipped your toes in the deep pool that fills Googles online presence.

To truly ban Google, youll also need to stop using Google Maps, the clear front-runner when it comes to navigation apps. And no, Waze wont dothats also owned by Google. Oh, and youll need to step out of the International Space Station to get away from Google Earth, a rather niche program, but one that is nonetheless difficult to replace.

At this point, youll have to transfer to arguably inferior web browsing and search services, and a good alternative to Google Maps that isnt Waze. All that and youll still have to handle two more powerhouse Google services: YouTube and Gmail.

There is simply no replacement for YouTube (and its female CEO). Sure, there are alternatives, but nothing comes close to the largest video platform, and a breeding ground for internet culture. According to Statista, YouTube owns 78.8 percent of the market share for multimedia sites, followed by Netflix and Hulutwo video streaming sites that dont step into YouTube territory. Its closest competitor, Bing Videos (yes, Bing Videos), owns less than 1 percent of the market share and doesnt come near YouTubes more than 1 billion monthly active users (or a third of the internet). Similarly, Gmail dominates the email client market share, falling only to the iPhone client, which youll presumably use once youve tossed out your Android devices.

Other useful Google services youd be sacrificing include Google Flights, Drive, News, and Shopping, along with Hangouts instant messaging and the excellent Google Translate.

But banning Google could also mean a living room makeover. If you own a Sony, Sharp, or Philips smart TV, it may come with Googles Android TV OS. If you dont, there is still a good chance your TV has Googles Chromecast built-in. The company has also released its own hardware over the last few years, including Chromecast devices, the Google Home smart speaker, and Google WiFi/OnHub routers. Finally, youll need a new way to adjust the temperature of your home. Alphabet, Googles parent company, owns Nest, best known for its popular smart thermostats.

Simply put, Google products touch every corner of the internet, even before accounting for its ad presence and partnerships. Thats not to say banning Google is impossibleyoull just need to accept that doing so means getting rid of pieces of the internet that make the internet so appealing.

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Sorry alt-right dudes, but #BoycottGoogle is more complicated than you think - The Daily Dot