Campuses shouldn’t squelch loathsome speaker

Milo Yiannopoulos spews.

Next month, he is scheduled to regurgitate his racist and misogynistic hate speech at the University of Washington and Washington State University. Students and faculty aware of him and his views want Yiannopoulos shut out.

That would be a mistake.

Yiannopoulos thrives on the anger triggered by his vile musings. Just to be sure he gets maximum attention, he’s calling his current appearances the “Dangerous Faggot Tour,” a loathsome reference to his own homosexuality. Always controversial, his notoriety has increased the last few months for two reasons: He was banned from Twitter, and he is an editor at Breitbart News Network.

Yiannopoulos got the ax from Twitter for unleashing a firestorm of invective at Leslie Jones, a “Saturday Night Live” cast member and co-star of the all-female “Ghostbusters” remake. Jones closed her Twitter account for a time because of the sliming.

Breitbart, already a favorite organ of the far right, achieved newfound fame with the selection of its chairman, Stephen K. Bannon, as chief White House strategist for President-elect Donald J. Trump.

The Yiannopoulos tour has been bumpy, with some campuses canceling appearances.

Others were interrupted by protesters, some of whom attempted to block access to the halls where he was speaking.

They demand “safe spaces” where they do not have to hear what offends them, as if universities were cloisters, not the threshold to a world of provocation.

Students and faculty members at UW and WSU have asked the campus presidents to cancel Yiannopoulos’ speeches, which coincide with Trump’s inauguration. WSU’s Kirk Schulz and UW’s Ana Mari Cauce have wisely rejected those pleas. They might go a step further.

At Texas A&M University, President Michael Young (formerly the UW president) programmed other events to draw attendance away from Yiannopoulos. WSU and UW have a month to arrange similar programs – and security measures.

The Inland Northwest has plenty of experience with hate speech, and how to respond.

White supremacists attracted by Richard Butler were an irritant for years, but they were allowed to march in Coeur d’Alene despite their despicable Nazi regalia. Countermeasures by human rights activists eventually drove them away or underground.

Unfortunately, rhetoric used in the recent campaign has rekindled aspirations among a new generation of haters like Yiannopoulos. Their ideas, like Butler’s, are trash.

But the U.S. Constitution protects the ravings of a Yiannopoulous, just as it does the burning of the American flag. If the United States is to remain a safe space for freedom, it must always be so.

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