Recently, news emerged of a curious incident at the Old Town Sport&Health gym in Alexandria, Virginia. During a routine workout, Georgetown University professor C. Christine Fair, spotted none other than Richard Spencer. The white nationalist leader has attracted outsized celebrity over the last year with the rise of Donald Trump.

As documented in her Tumblr — Shit Men Say — Fair accosted Spencer at the gym where she “loudly identified him as a neo-Nazi.” Long story short, she launched into a tirade, and the whole imbroglio led the gym to revoke Spencer’s membership.

Now, I don’t much like Richard Spencer — and as a Jewish journalist in New York City— I suspect he doesn’t think very much of me either. But one thing I do like is America, and in the United States I grew up in, I was taught that everyone had a right to hold their political beliefs no matter how odious and that the principle of free speech really isn’t intended for activists shouting “I love puppies” — but rather controversial rogues like Spencer.

According to a Washington Post accounting, Fair’s outrage toward Spencer prompted him to ask for a personal trainer to separate the two. Her persistent badgering also led another gym member to step in on behalf of Spencer, who Fair dismissed with a demand that she stop being “ignorant” and that she should “Google him.” The confrontation even led the gym general manager to confront Fair for creating a “hostile environment.” Fair’s response was that Spencer’s mere existence in the gym was the real hostility.

When I read this, I don’t see a powerful stand taken against a Nazi, I see someone going out of her way to identify and harass another person who was being a perfectly respectful gym member. It is extremely troubling that even though a gym employee at the time chastised Fair for making a scene, it was Spencer who was punished; his mere existence being deemed the cause of the outrage — where have we seen that before?

Now, before anyone gets on a Libertarian high horse, I am fully aware that as a private member’s only establishment, a gym may have the “right” to give Spencer the boot for any reason or no reason at all, and I’m not suggesting any legal transgression. I am humbly suggesting, however, that booting Spencer simply because of his political beliefs certainly violates the spirit of the law and the mutual comity which we all require to live peacefully among each other.

It is very telling that Christine Fair teaches at one of America’s great institutions of higher learning. It goes a long way to explaining why college students have become so intolerant, crude and nasty toward people they disagree with. What lesson should Professor Fair’s students draw from her example at the gym?

Richard Spencer’s ideas are as repulsive as they come, and maybe that’s enough for you. Maybe we should just cut through this charade of accepting him in society at all and just chuck him in jail. If, as Professor Fair says, his existence alone is hostility, we may have no choice.

But, if you’re like me, you’ll know that the United States has a long and rich history of defending schmucks like Spencer going back hundreds of years. Our second president, John Adams, took a lot of heat from the Christine Fair’s of colonial America for his decision to defend the British soldiers responsible for the Boston Massacre. Around 200 years later, that same spirit persisted in Skokie, Illinois where Jewish lawyer, Joseph Burton, defended the right of Nazi’s like Richard Spencer to march through the Chicago suburb.

A lot of today’s firebrand trolls — including Spencer — have reaped handsome rewards from liberal overreaction. It’s why Berkeley burns and Milo Yiannopoulos (will soon be) a bestselling author.

The formula for Spencer is the same.

This incident with Christine Fair redoubles the conviction of his supporters, generates new visibility for his ideas, and divides the vast majority of ordinary (not white nationalists) who find Spencer anathema but are also repelled by the fascist tactics used by his opponents. You may remember those same divisions over the acceptability of punching him in the face.

Richard Spencer’s vision for humanity has been rejected by history; his beliefs should be rejected in the marketplace of ideas. The cheap thuggery of liberal Torquemada’s like Christine Fair will only advance the opposite of their intended ends.

[image via screengrab]

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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.