Citing threats, student withdraws from BU after attending Charlottesville rally

Kalina Newman | college.usatoday.com

Several men who attended the "Unite the Right" rallies last weekend in Charlottesville, Va., have found that their participation is affecting their lives. A couple lost their jobs, for example. And student Nicholas J. Fuentes says he will not be returning to Boston University, citing death threats he says he received after attending the rallies.

Fuentes says he'll take the fall semester off and plans to attend Auburn University in the spring, according to the Boston Globe.

"There were several considerations that went into (transferring), but the last straw that crystallized my decision was the fact that I didn't feel safe on campus," Fuentes tells USA TODAY College. "With this recent event in Charlottesville, I got a new batch of (death threats). I had already decided (I was going to leave), but these recent threats confirmed that this was the right call."

While Fuentes, 18, didn't release any specific threats, he says "people had been harassing me on Twitter from Boston, telling me to meet me at restaurants down the street from where I lived. It got to a point where I didn't feel safe."

Fuentes's rose to prominence on campus at BU when he was featured in a video by BU Today, the university's official news source, about his political views.

In the video, Fuentes explains why he planned to vote for Donald Trump. Sporting his trademark Make America Great Again hat, Fuentes endorses "the cultural transformation Trump is talking about."

Fuentes came under some criticism for the video, and he fought back.

Disagreement deepened into controversy when conservative news website Campus Reform covered Fuentes coming under fire for his support of then-candidate Trump.

Campus Reform's article included Facebook posts by BU student Ian Fitzgerald criticizing Fuentes. Fitzgerald says he received death threats as a result, and shared with USA TODAY College a screenshot of one such threat.

But after Fuentes posted on Facebook about his experience in Charlottesville, Campus Reform director Cabot Phillips publicly accused Fuentes of racism in a tweet.

At least people like @NickJFuentes are no longer being subtle about their hate.



Glad you & your racist buddies had a good time yesterday. pic.twitter.com/DitBzQqlm4 — Cabot Phillips (@cabot_phillips) August 13, 2017

Fuentes isn't having it.

"This was really a callout to all of the young conservatives in think-tanks and their cushy jobs that aren’t really being honest or truthful about what’s going on," Fuentes says about being criticized by fellow conservatives.

Fuentes hosts a daily conservative YouTube talk show called "America First" on the Right Side Broadcasting Channel. Shortly before going to Charlottesville, Fuentes said on his show that he "will be there to rally the troops ... if you see me, don't kill me, please."

Despite his participation in the "Unite the Right" rally, Fuentes says he does not consider himself a neo-Nazi, white supremacist or member of the so-called "alt-right."

"It’s funny, so many people have been calling me all of these names," he says. "My last name is Fuentes, but at the same time I am a 'white supremacist.' I’m Catholic, too, so they’re calling me a Klansman, but the KKK hated Catholics."

Instead, Fuentes said he identifies as a "paleo-conservative," or someone who adopts traditional conservative values.

"I went down to Unite the Right because the majority of people who were there were there to protest mass migration and the removal of Confederate statues," Fuentes said.

He believes the violence at the rally came exclusively from counter-protesters, except for the car attack that killed a counter-protester named Heather Heyer and injured 19 others.

"It was very chaotic and catastrophic, and I think a lot of that is a result of counter-protesters and the government," Fuentes says.

When asked if he was guilty by association for marching alongside people with such extremist views, Fuentes said that if so, then such association extends to many others.

"If I was guilty by association, that would mean that everyone who supported Black Lives Matter is guilty of killing police officers," he says. "I would say that anyone that’s ever been to a mosque and has preached radical Islamism is guilty of terrorism."

"There is exactly one picture of a Nazi flag out there, and there was one person holding it," Fuentes says, before conceding, "Well, there were a couple." However, he says, "The majority of the people who were there were in MAGA hats, duck hunting outfits, and were there to express their concern over the removal of Confederate statues."

Fuentes claims his advocacy calls not for the deaths of minorities, but for immigration reform. He believes that whites, not minorities, are the victims of discrimination.

"We basically live in a country where if you’re white, you are a second-class citizen. If you apply to colleges, you will be discriminated against. If you apply for a job, you will be discriminated against because you are white," he says. It’s not an activist statement, but an objective observation."

Many at BU know him from incendiary social media posts.

When rising sophomore Samantha Delgado tangled with Fuentes about his political views over Facebook, she was met with this comment:

BU students have had strong reactions to the news that Fuentes is leaving the university.

"He's a white supremacist who masks his racism as 'white advocacy.' I'm ecstatic that he is no longer attending BU and wish him no success in his future endeavors," says Jazmyne Jackson, a rising BU senior.

"If you don't want death threats, you don't fight for the oppression of all people that aren't white men. Nick Fuentes is advocating for the eradication of POC, women, LGBTQ, the disabled, and other minorities, but he's trying to make himself seem like the victim," says BU student Seb Tellez.

"I had the pleasure of having dinner with him once, and I realized just how brilliant he was," says Ashley Stuart, a rising sophomore. "Don't get me wrong — his views are crazy. But strictly his book smarts were amazing. He could name every single country on the planet."

Reflecting on leaving BU, Fuentes says he, as a conservative, feels less safe in Boston than liberals do in the South. "If you go down South and are a liberal, you won't fear for your life."



Related: UNR resists calls to expel student who marched in Charlottesville

Kalina Newman is a Boston University student and a USA TODAY digital producer.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.