POOLESVILLE, MD — White nationalist Richard Spencer, who set up his National Policy Institute in northern Virginia, has struggled to share his ideas in public. Most recently a Montgomery County farm shut down a conference organized by Spencer after learning he was behind it and planned to bring in neo-Nazi speakers.

The owners of Rocklands Farm in Poolesville wrote on the venue's website they asked the group to leave on Sunday, Nov. 19. They say the attendees agreed to immediately leave peacefully. A graduate of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Spencer led a protest in May and participated in the violent August "Unite the Right" rally against that college town's decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.



The Poolesville venue initially was not aware that Spencer's white nationalist group was tied with the event, The Washington Post reports. Spencer told the newspaper a third-party company had set up the conference, only saying it was a corporate gathering. Spencer said an employee at Rocklands Farm found out he was there, and that's when the gathering was shut down. He said the event would have featured Daniel Friberg, the European editor of AltRight.com, and Kevin MacDonald, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as "the neo-Nazi movement's favorite academic."

"We didn't lie, we didn't deceive, and we certainly did not break any rules while we were there," Spencer told The Post. "We had sharp words and were obviously disappointed, but there was no confrontation of any kind." The venue refunded the group's money after shutting the conference down. A statement from the venue says it was the first time they had asked a group to leave.

The University of Florida nearly rejected Spencer's request to speak last month, citing the Charlottesville violence. Officials reluctantly allowed him to give the speech Oct. 19, albeit with a heavy security presence as hundreds of protesters changed outside.

Spencer's National Policy Institute has drawn regular protests since it moved to Alexandria, Virginia, following President Trump's election. In May, Old Town Sport&Health ended Spencer's gym membership after a Georgetown professor confronted him and called him a Nazi. Protesters have regularly lined up outside Spencer's Old Town office and home in hopes of driving him out of town, while the city has fielded numerous complaints from residents.

But city officials' hands are tied, since Spencer has a lease. The city said in a statement, "The City has no authority to regulate residential or commercial property owners or tenants who follow the law while purchasing or leasing space. But while we uphold the First Amendment right to free speech, we will not permit harassment or hate crimes in our city."

— Story by Patch Editor Emily Leayman