The University of Florida is set to host white supremacist Richard Spencer on campus. Hosting him presents a clear danger to UF's students and community; violates the right of every UF student to a safe learning environment, free of violence, threats, and intimidation; and will require the University to spend half a million dollars on security.

This event endangers students and runs contrary to UF's values of inclusion for students of color and immigrants, Jewish and LGBT students, and the entire campus community.

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Tell UF's President Dr. Kent Fuchs and the Board of Trustees not to host Richard Spencer.

To University of Florida President Dr. Kent Fuchs and Board of Trustees:

As employees, students, and supporters of the University of Florida, we believe that your decision to host the white supremacist Richard Spencer on our campus presents a clear and present danger to us and to the greater Gainesville community.

We have seen the torch-wielding, anti-Semitic, racist violence that Spencer brought to Charlottesville, without the prior notice and consent of the University of Virginia. There, Spencer demonstrated that no matter what he or his lawyers have told you in their negotiations to secure space at UF, he is an opportunist whose assurances about his and his followers’ conduct cannot be trusted. In Charlottesville, their actions left a young woman dead at the hands of a white supremacist and two public servants dead in the line of duty, and we do not want that for Gainesville. We believe every UF student should have a safe learning environment, free of violence, threats, and intimidation.

More than 40 percent of UF students are students of color, and an estimated 19 percent of UF’s undergraduates are Jewish. Many are LGBT. Many in our community are the children of immigrants and immigrants themselves. Our entire country, including our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents made enormous sacrifices to beat back Nazism in Europe in the 20^th century. We believe that in the 21^st century, our university should make it clear that all people, regardless of race, religion, or sexuality, matter to us. We support them. We care for them. We are not obligated to, nor should we, give material aid to people whose political proposals include the deportation and extinction of members of our community, and who thereby create unmanageable danger to our safety here on our own campus.  Our Gator Nation should not be complicit in violent campaigns for ethnic cleansing or calls for an “all white ethno-state.”

The university has said it will incur security costs for this event in excess of $500,000 —money far better spent on academic programs and support services for students. The damage to UF’s reputation via this event is too great to estimate. It may well be your most lasting legacy as the leadership of this institution.

With all of this in mind, we ask you to reverse the decision to host Richard Spencer on the UF campus. Cancel this speaking engagement, and affirm the university’s dedication, as a public institution of higher learning, to our entire community—people of all colors, all religions, all ethnicities, and all sexualities. We are fierce believers in free speech and the democratic exchange of ideas, but Richard Spencer and his white nationalist movement are not interested in either of these things. They are coming to incite violence and do not deserve the public trust or resources of this great public university and our loving community.