Protests greet Milo Yiannopolous at CU Boulder

On Wednesday January 25th, CU Boulder played host to controversial blogger Milo Yiannopolous. His speaking tour which has seen protests at campuses around the country has been described by critics as a way of promoting hate speech. An anti racist campaigner was shot outside a Yiannopolous event in Washington last week.

The blogger was banned from twitter for racist abuse of African American actress Leslie Jones. He has used hateful language against feminists and transgender people.

A crowd of demonstrators gathered outside the lecture at CU which was called titled “Why Ugly People Hate Me.”

KGNU’s Julia Caufield spoke with some protestors and some people who were heading into the sold out event. Leanne Grey, a CU student said that Yiannopolous has used hate speech towards trans people, women and people of color and it has no place on the CU campus. “Hate speech isn’t free speech, it’s harming other people and I don’t want that on my campus.”

Kyle Smith, a CU alum was attending the talk and described himself as a big fan of Yiannopolous.

“Frankly I don’t think anybody should be this upset over someone speaking, I think they should be this upset over actual violence.”

Kim Zimmerman came from Denver to protest the event saying that not speaking out is being complicit with hate speech “I’m here just to say this is not OK, it’s not normal.”