Thread by @VABVOX

This is an ugly story. @ASFried is a subject of this piece, but was not interviewed for it. #mepolitics is very insular, but not wildly different from the nation.
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University suspended College Republicans because someone said they practiced ‘Nazism’ thecollegefix.com/university-sus…

This group is blatantly alt right & Holocaust denying. Fried was forced into a role she didn't want because others had already quit for similar reasons. But a faculty advisor is required for campus groups. Now Fried (also a Bangor columnist)is accused of setting the group up.
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There is in fact a line between free speech and hate speech. That a university would appear to support the latter should be concerning. In the era of Trump, with hate crimes up exponentially, particularly anti-Semitism and LGBTQ crimes, why embrace that rhetoric?
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I only know Fried tangentially and we don't always agree on political issues, but she is certainly a proponent of free speech and demands that others scrupulously follow that rubric. So this group had to have crossed the line to force her hand.
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So this feels like more than a #mepolitics story to me--this feels like more of that dangerous thing conservatives do when they are targeting an individual (Omar, AOC) or a group (LGBTQ, Muslims, immigrants): it's not free speech--it's incitement.
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