Protest stops Tancredo's UNC speech

[dweller]

CHAPEL HILL -- UNC-CH police released pepper spray and threatened to use a Taser on student protesters Tuesday evening when a crowd disrupted a speech by former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo opposing in-state tuition benefits to unauthorized immigrants.

Hundreds of protesters converged on Bingham Hall, shouting profanities and accusations of racism while Tancredo and the student who introduced him tried to speak. Minutes into the speech, a protester pounded a window of the classroom until the glass shattered, prompting Tancredo to flee and campus police to shut down the event.

Tancredo was brought to campus by a UNC chapter of Youth for Western Civilization, a national organization of students who oppose mass immigration, multiculturalism and affirmative action.

Before the event, campus security removed two women who delayed Tancredo's speech by stretching a 12-foot banner across the front of the classroom. It read, "No dialogue with hate."

Police escorted the women into the hallway, amid more than 30 protesters who clashed with the officers trying to keep them out of the overcrowded classroom. After police released pepper spray and threatened the crowd with a Taser, the protesters gathered outside Bingham Hall.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/immigration/story/1486087.html


dp

[struggle4progress]

1. White Nationalist-Linked ‘Right-Wing Youth’ Group Debuts At CPAC

A well-funded new organization whose stated purpose is to launch a “right-wing youth movement” will make a splashy debut tonight at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, in Washington, D.C. CPAC is billed as “the largest annual gathering of conservative students, activists and policymakers.”

According to CPAC materials, the group, Youth for Western Civilization, is one of the official co-sponsors, or major donors, of this year’s conference ...

One of the group’s founders, Marcus Epstein, is a frequent contributor to the white nationalist hate website VDARE.com ...

Epstein is also the head of the Robert A. Taft Club, a Washington, D.C., group whose events regularly feature prominent academic racists like Jared Taylor, the editor of the overtly white supremacist journal American Renaissance ...

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2009/02/26/white-nationalist-linked-right-wing-youth-group-debuts-at-cpac/

[struggle4progress]

2. Nonviolence training for protesters is always good idea. I've never worked with them but

EPF in Durham apparently offers such training:

http://peaceinitiatives.epfnational.org/digital_faith/dfcfiles/112

[struggle4progress]

3. Youth for Western Civilization brings Tom Tancredo to UNC

Printed from the Independent Weekly website: localhost
POSTED ON APRIL 13, 2009:
Youth for Western Civilization brings Tom Tancredo to UNC
Student group opposes diversity, multiculturalism
By Matt Saldaña

A new student group at UNC-Chapel Hill that decries "radical multiculturalism" and "mass immigration"—and whose faculty sponsor, ironically, is married to a Hispanic woman—will host former U.S. Congressman Tom Tancredo to speak Tuesday night about illegal immigration.

The event is hosted by the UNC chapter of Youth for Western Civilization, a self-styled "right-wing youth movement" founded in 2008 to "create a subculture that will promote the survival of Western Civilization and pride in Western heritage" on college campuses.

Riley Matheson, a senior, told the Indy that he started the UNC chapter in February to counter the campus' celebration of diversity, as well as the university's "deep mistrust and hatred of Western heritage" ...

The Leadership Institute, an Arlington, Va.-based conservative training organization, is funding the event, according to Matheson ...

http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/PrintFriendly?oid=377010


The Leadership Institute
From SourceWatch
The Leadership Institute is a Virginia based training organisation for potential conservative political leaders ... Past Students: Mitch McConnell ... Karl Rove ... James Guckert ... Grover Norquist ... Ralph Reed .... http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Leadership_Institute

[struggle4progress]

4. UNC student, six others arrested after campus protests

Posted: Apr. 23, 2009

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill released the names Thursday of six people arrested during a speech by former Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode on campus.

Campus police also arrested a UNC student .. on charges of disorderly conduct during a protest by speech by former Congressman Tom Tancredo a week earlier ...

Police arrested six people on charges of disorderly conduct and removed them from the venue. None of those arrested was a current student or employee of the university ... http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5013205/

[struggle4progress]

5. Police, protesters point fingers over UNC melee

Group says officers' actions escalated ‘fear and chaos' that halted speech on immigration.
Chapel Hill News
Posted: Monday, Apr. 20, 2009

UNC Chapel Hill police and a student group responsible for the protest that foiled former congressman Tom Tancredo's immigration talk on campus have some differences of opinion.

UNC Students for a Democratic Society claims police used “violence and extreme force,” escalating the confrontation at Bingham Hall.

“All organizations involved in the protest were nonviolent,” the SDS said in a news release.

“Rather, it was the violence employed by the Campus Police that created a climate of fear and chaos” ... http://www.charlotteobserver.com/local/story/674847.html