CMU Students Plan Protest Event for Same Day and Time as White Nationalist’s
Nathan Deal, Daily Sentinel, March 14, 2025
The announcement that white nationalist Jared Taylor would speak at Colorado Mesa University later this month immediately sparked campus-wide and community-wide debate over free speech.
Among the responses has been the organization of a protest event for CMU students and faculty taking place at the same time as Taylor’s event.
CMU Student Body President Leilani Domingo said that students have organized an event called the Mav Unity Party Celebrating Diverse Community, taking place from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on March 27.
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Taylor was invited to speak March 27 by the CMU Western Culture Club, a student organization.
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Ahead of the event as well as the all-day protest, tempers are already flaring, as Taylor has clashed with CMU President John Marshall over email, prompting a reply from Domingo on students’ behalf.
After the event was announced, Marshall sent an email to students, saying he would not attend Taylor’s event, saying Taylor’s values are “at odds with our campus values” and describing Taylor’s views as “abhorrent” and filled with “vileness.” He referred to Taylor’s ideas as denigrating human beings.
Marshall referenced CMU’s self-applied identity as a “Human Scale University”, which he defines as “a model of the world we want to create.”
Taylor took offense to Marshall’s statement in an email he sent to Marshall and others on March 10.
“I am sorry to learn that you think my views are ‘abhorrent’ and ‘vile.’ You write that you will ‘be there to peacefully and respectfully demonstrate our values,’ but that you will not attend my talk. You encourage students to attend, and to take ‘the opportunity of your life’ … to carefully deconstruct [my] dehumanizing ideas,” Taylor wrote.
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