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WHAT YOU SAID: Did University of Cincinnati make the right decision on Richard Spencer?

Posted at 6:00 AM, Oct 17, 2017
and last updated 2017-10-17 06:00:05-04

Last week, University of Cincinnati officials said they would permit white nationalist Richard Spencer to speak on campus.

The decision was controversial. Spencer helped organize and headline the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where protester Heather Heyer was killed.

RELATED: White nationalist Richard Spencer will be allowed to speak at UC

UC officials were forced to wade into contentious and emotional waters.

University President Neville Pinto said no campus group, program or faculty had invited Spencer. The request came unsolicited from a Georgia State University student who has dedicated himself to booking speaking engagements for Spencer.

Spencer is a leading figure of the alternative right, white nationalist movement. The movement espouses a white supremacist and white separatist ideology, and Spencer's National Policy Institute has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

You can read the SPLC's brief on Spencer here.

Pinto cited First Amendment rights in announcing the decision to permit Spencer on campus.

Other universities have made different decisions.

In September, Ohio State took the opposite stand, denying Spencer the opportunity. The university cited the potential for violence as its reason.

Texas A&M and the University of Florida also cited safety concerns when they said no to Spencer.

We'd like to know what you think.

Our What You Said question this week is: Did UC made the right decision in allowing Richard Spencer to speak on campus?

Please share your opinions with us, and we'll publish some of the most interesting and representative in our What You Said feature later this week.

There are a few ways you can share your thoughts:

You can email Managing Editor for Opinion and Engagement David Holthaus at david.holthaus@wcpo.com.

You can go to our Facebook page, where you can leave comments on this story.

You can tell us on Twitter.

You can tell us right here.

You can scroll below to answer a poll.

You can share your written thoughts, a video file, an audio file or simply a tweet or Facebook comment.

There's just some basic ground rules:

  • Keep it clean.
  • Keep it civil.
  • Keep it real.

That's about it. We'll publish What You Said later this week.

You can also go to our Feedback Friday page and share your thoughts there on the issues of the day.