A petition to cancel Monday’s event had been circulated by students weeks prior to the show’s date. The Student Committee for Defense and Solidarity had organized protests against the university’s decision to allow McInnes to co-host the alt-right event on campus and to pay the 52-year-old using student fees. The petition was signed with over 3,000 signatures.
Penn State decided to cancel the event just 45 minutes before it was supposed to begin at 8 PM due to a “threat of escalating violence” following aggravated clashes between protestors. According to the university’s president, Neeli Bendapudi, the peaceful street protest against the event erupted when one of the co-hosts of the show, Alex Stein, decided to enter the crowd and subsequently raised tensions.
The event, called “Stand Back & Stand By” in reference to a statement made by former President Donald Trump, was to be hosted by the Penn State chapter of Uncensored America, which calls itself a free speech organization.
Penn State initially allowed the event to go forward despite finding themselves in the “unenviable position of sharing space with individuals whose views differ dramatically from our University’s values of inclusion, diversity, equity and respect,” saying that it was an “undeniable constitutional right” for a student organization, including Uncensored America, to select speakers they wish to host even without the university’s endorsement.
“It is unclear which individuals on-site then resorted to physical confrontation and to using pepper spray against others in the crowd, including against police officers,” said Bendapudi.
According to the New York Times, Penn State did not immediately respond to a request for further comment, while the campus police wholly declined to comment.
The group Uncensored America was founded in 2020, according to their website, as a “non-partisan organization dedicated to fighting for freedom of speech” in an effort to make “American culture free and fun again.” The group’s founder, Sean Semanko, is a former Penn student and field organizer for Trump’s 2020 campaign.
The canceled comedy event had promised to be a “politically provocative” comedy night that would apparently fall in line with the nonprofit’s mission to host “honest and fun conversations with controversial figures to fight censorship and cancel culture.”
Stein, who is described as a “professional troll,” was spat on by a Penn State protestor after the right-wing agitator taunted and mocked Penn State protestors. After the female protestor spat on Stein, he said, “I like that fetish—that turns me on. Now she turns me on!”
McInnes, a Canadian podcastor, co-founded Vice, a media company that was initially founded as a Canadian-American alternative magazine in 1994 when he was just 24 years old. McInnes then moved to the United States in 2001. He founded the first chapter of the Proud Boys in New York in 2016. The group has an undeniable link to Trump, after they were found to be leading major breaches in the January 2021 riot on the United States Capitol.
In June 2021, the New York Times reported that more than 40 members of the Proud Boys were indicted in connection with the Capitol Hill riots. The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack also found the group played an instrumental role in the breach of the Capitol.