Three months ago, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire canceled a College Republicans event featuring journalist Andy Ngo in response to violent threats made by Antifa activists and "concerning information" the school claimed it received from Hanover police.
Now, the school is insisting that Dartmouth College Republicans pay $3,600 in security fees for the canceled event and warning that failure to pay the fees will result in the club being unable to request further funds from the school.
On Tuesday, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education sent a letter to Dartmouth College demanding that the school "immediately rescind the security fee charge" and permit the College Republicans chapter to request funding to host future events.
"Forcing the group to shoulder these security costs — based on detractors' disruption at no fault of the College Republicans — and refusing to fund future College Republicans events until these exorbitant fees are paid, infringes the expressive and associational rights Dartmouth promises to its students," FIRE's Sabrina Conza wrote to Dartmouth President Philip J. Hanlon.
.@dartmouth College is demanding @DartRepublicans pay security fees for an event administrators unilaterally cancelled.https://twitter.com/thefireorg/status/1516161197963460615\u00a0\u2026— Andy Ng\u00f4 \ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08 (@Andy Ng\u00f4 \ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08) 1650316475
The planned event with Ngo in January was moved online after his physical visit to campus was canceled. At the time, Dartmouth College claimed that it had received unspecified "concerning information" from Hanover police "regarding safety issues" for the event. In response to requests from FIRE for clarification about why the in-person event was canceled, the school said it was "deeply concerned about the credible threats to participant safety shared by local law enforcement" before the event with Ngo was scheduled to begin.
However, FIRE also requested clarification from the Hanover police, which shared public records and a letter from the police chief stating that law enforcement "did not make a recommendation to Dartmouth College regarding the January 20th event."
The letter from Chief of Police Charles B. Dennis said that "the information and concerns we had received from student organizers, event organizers, the speaker, open-source information available online referencing the event, and information through law enforcement channels was credible and caused us concern for the safety of those attending the event, protesting the event, as well as our community members."
"With the information we had, we were operationally prepared as best we could to handle the event and protest," Dennis said.
In a statement to Inside Higher Ed, a spokesperson for Dartmouth College affirmed the school's support for "freedom of expression and dissent."
The school said that student organizations are responsible for event-related security costs and said that "leaders of the college Republican club were aware of their responsibility for security fees for the event and received an estimate in advance, with enough time to submit a funding request for these costs. They did not request this funding. The club was also aware of the possibility that the event might need to be adjusted to address safety concerns expressed by the organizers themselves.”
Dartmouth College in New Hampshire canceled an event featuring journalist Andy Ngo after the school received numerous threats of violence from Antifa activists.
In an op-ed for the New York Post, Ngo recounted that he had been invited to speak last Thursday by the Dartmouth chapters of College Republicans and Turning Point USA. The topic of the talk was going to be "Extremism in America," and Ngo was featured because of his courageous reporting on Antifa violence in the face of violent attacks directed toward him.
But last Thursday, when the event was scheduled to take place, college administrators decided to switch the in-person talk to an online-only lecture. According to the New Hampshire Journal, people who arrived for the event were turned away by security, even those who had traveled hours to see Ngo and co-speaker Gabriel Nadales, a former member of California militant leftist groups.
"Soon after the event was announced, Antifa and its army of online trolls threatened violence to shut it down," Ngo wrote for the Post. "In turn, Dartmouth administrators gave the extremists exactly what they wanted: The Hanover, NH, college canceled the in-person event at the last minute, citing vague 'safety issues.'"
In a statement to the New Hampshire Journal, Dartmouth College's Associate Vice President for Communications Diana Lawrence said the event was switched to online-only because the school and local police could not guarantee the safety of attendees.
“In light of concerning information from Hanover police regarding safety issues, similar concerns expressed by the College Republican leadership, and challenges with the student organization’s ability to staff a large public event and communicate effectively (including dissemination of the visitor policy and a prohibition on bags in the building), the college has requested that the ‘Extremism in America’ panel be moved online,” Lawrence said.
The Journal reported that there was no visible presence of protesters Thursday night.
Ngo wrote that Antifa activists made violent threats in the days leading up to the canceled event.
"About a week prior to the scheduled event, the group Northeast Antifa published a disturbing flyer featuring a photograph of my bloodied face from when an Antifa mob beat me in 2019 in Portland, Ore. I was hospitalized for a brain hemorrhage from that assault and robbery," he wrote.
He cited a tweet from the Antifa group that announced: “Anti-fascists from all over New England will be mobilizing January 20th, 2022 at Dartmouth College to disrupt and prevent fascist propagandists like Andy Ngo from normalizing their reactionary beliefs on college campuses in the Northeast.”
Anti-fascists from Mass, NH, VT, Maine; anti-fascists from all over New England will be mobilizing January 20th, 2022 at Dartmouth College to disrupt & prevent fascist propagandists like Andy Ngo from normalizing their reactionary beliefs on college campuses in the Northeast.— Northeast FASHWATCH (@Northeast FASHWATCH) 1642547618
Ngo also wrote that Northeast Antifa threatened him personally on Instagram, posting: "This is to Andy Ngo himself: when you f*** with us you are not f***ing with college students. When you enter our home you start playing by our rules, not yours. New England is anti-fascist, and we will hold that line until death.”
This threat and others from leftist groups were met with what Ngo described as a "robust and commendable response" from Hanover police, Lebanon police, and the Grafton County Sheriff's Office. Police officers were deployed to secure the lecture hall where Ngo and Nadales were scheduled to speak.
Even so, school administrators canceled the live event, and Ngo criticized the school's action.
"Antifa’s response was unsurprising. But what should surprise us is Dartmouth College’s decision to legitimize Antifa’s cancel strategy. The crowdsourced online threats were bluffs meant to force the rest of us into self-censorship," Ngo wrote.
"The lack of condemnation from the New Hampshire chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and other so-called civil rights groups signals that those actions are permissible. By giving in, Dartmouth just handed Antifa a blueprint on shutting down future events. And sure enough, the same Antifa accounts that made the threats took a victory lap," he added.
Indeed, Antifa groups celebrated the cancellation of Ngo's event.
Andy Ngo got his event canceled by @dartmouth tonight. To antifascists, that is a win for all of us. As soon as word got out that the event was moved online, people left. Some Proud Boys were there, but no confrontations happened. The campus was completely calm, safe & normal.— Northeast FASHWATCH (@Northeast FASHWATCH) 1642742087
"Andy Ngo got his event canceled by @dartmouth tonight. To antifascists, that is a win for all of us," the group posted on Twitter.
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