Students protest 'violent speech' at MSU- Latino group wants ban on certain speakers
Web Editor: Jessica Puchala

A Latino student group is rallying against what they call free speech violations at Michigan State University.

About 30 representatives from Chicanos y Latino Unidos (CLU), along with members of several other organizations, met for about a half hour earlier this week on the steps of MSU's Hannah Administration Center to "challenge the university into having them take a stand about ... what the difference is between freedom of speech and hate speech, fighting words and violent speech," CLU President Gabriela Alcazar said.

Specifically, CLU wants MSU officials to disallow another student organization - Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) - from hosting speakers who "speak against minorities" and "instigate and threaten people and insult people," said Alcazar, 20, who originally is from Imlay City.

"There's a point where they don't have the right to say the things they've been saying," said the international relations and social relations and policy major. CLU wants the university "to begin drawing a line and not keep covering everything with freedom of speech."

MSU's chapter of YAF has made news for various events, including an anti-immigration forum last year during which violence broke out.

The student organization was recently listed as a hate group by Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights law firm.

Kyle Bristow, MSU's chairman of YAF, attended the event. "Free speech is a God-given right, and a group of 13 people who disagree with that are not going to take that right from us," said the 20-year-old international relations major. "We're contributing to intellectual diversity."

Bristow said he believes the rally was to protest an upcoming YAF event.

YAF has invited Mark Krikorian from the Center for Immigration Studies to speak against illegal immigration from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. today at room 102 in Conrad Hall, Bristow said.

"Terrorists and bad people can get in, and that's why it's an extremely important issue," Bristow said.
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