Milo Yiannopoulos set to speak at California university
Right wing figure Milo Yiannopoulos will speak at California State University, it is reported.
The Advocate reports that Fullerton’s College Republicans will host the extreme right-wing anti-trans pro-Trump campaigner.
This is despite riots breaking out at the University of California, Berkeley, when he was last invited to speak at a college.
The far-right figure and internet troll is already deeply controversial, previously claiming he would ‘cure’ himself of being gay if he could, describing trans people as “mentally ill gay men dressing up for attention”, and using a university lecture to single out and bully a transgender student on-stage.
“At this point, it’s pretty much a done deal. We’re just formalizing it,” said the Republican student group’s president, Christopher Boyle.
“It’s really just the fine details — things like how the room will be set up — that’s holding it back.”
It is expected that the event will take place around the end of October.
But there is a lot of push-back, with thousands of students at the college signing a Change.org petition protesting Yiannopoulos’ appearance.
“We call on admin to block any attempts to bring these hateful leaders to campus. … Hate speech to incite violence and threaten the lives of students is not the same as free speech of diverse opinions,” the petition reads.
Thirteen people were arrested during the riots when he was last invited to speak at a similar event.
The American Civil Liberties Union earlier this month said it was suing the DC Metro on behalf of Yiannopoulos.
The ACLU announced that it would be filing a lawsuit on behalf of Yiannopoulos, after the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority refused to allow him to advertise his book on the DC Metro.
According to reports earlier this year, Yiannopoulos had sold just 152 copies of his book ‘Dangerous’ in the UK.
The book sold 18,000 copies in the US, according to Nielsen Bookscan. It had debuted at number one of Amazon’s non-fiction chart.
Yiannopoulos’ PR team had claimed that 100,000 copies had been sold in the US.
And the blogger has added that the delay in the sales count is down to booksellers underestimating demand and not ordering enough copies.
He said: “By now, you may have heard reports claiming we only sold 18,000 copies of Dangerous and that our 100,000 copies claim is exaggerated. I’m happy to report that this is fake news.”
The book was originally dropped by publisher Simon & Schuster after he made comments about child abuse.
A conservative publishing house had been rumoured to be buying his first book after he lost a book deal due to various outbursts.
But he later self-published the book.
Major publisher Simon & Schuster had originally commissioned the book from Yiannopoulos, offering him $250,000 for the rights.
However it cancelled the deal “after careful consideration”, when controversial video footage emerged of him appearing to defend men who have sex with underage boys.
Other authors had also threatened a boycott of the publishers after offering Milo the deal.
Yiannopoulos released a written statement and a video after he lost his job at Breitbart news and his book deal, following his remarks about child abuse, saying he is “partly to blame”.
He says that it was a “blend of British sarcasm, provocation and gallows humour” which brings him to “regret”, any understanding.
Going on, he added: “I do not advocate for illegal behaviour. I explicitly say on the tapes that I think the current age of consent is ‘about right.’
“I do not believe sex with 13-year-olds is okay. When I mentioned the number 13, I was talking about the age I lost my own virginity.
“I shouldn’t have used the word “boy” — which gay men often do to describe young men of consenting age — instead of “young man.” That was an error.”
But he admits that he is “certainly guilty” of using “imprecise language”.
His book’s launch party saw trouble too, after a restaurant cancelled his booking when it realised what the reservation had been made for.
After the controversy, Yiannopoulos claimed that he had raised $12 million in investments in order to start a new media company.
