From The Stranger

If you followed Ana Sofia Knauf’s reports for the Stranger about the canceled Milo Yiannopoulos talk at UW last January, you know that an anti-fascist activist was shot by a couple who had come to hear the white supremacist, anti-feminist poster boy. The activist, Josh Dukes, declined to press charges despite having suffered critical injury. Since the incident, many have debated issues of free speech and safety in the university community: “Is ‘hate speech’ protected ‘free speech?’ What is ‘hate speech,’ and should it be banned from college campuses?” The University of Washington American Association of University Professors has invited speakers to address these questions, including Knauf, Shon Meckfessel (author of Nonviolence Ain’t What it Used to Be), John Walker, spokesman for Dukes and member of the Industrial Workers of the World, and the ACLU’s Venkat Balasubramani. The panel will also include students such as Jack Pickett from the UW College Republicans (which had invited Yiannopoulos to speak on that January evening); Alan-Michael Weatherford, doctoral student in history, and Ruby Byrne, doctoral student in physics. UW professor Abraham Flaxman will moderate. They say: “Representatives of UW administration and the UW police department were invited but declined to attend, as did the attorney for the Hokoanas, the couple who have now been indicted in the shooting.”