Nicholas Fuentes

Nicholas Fuentes

(Teresa Crawford)

Nicholas Fuentes, in his basement studio in LaGrange Park, Ill. (AP Photo/Teresa Crawford)(Teresa Crawford)

In May, Nicholas Fuentes, a rising young voice in the alt-right movement, was admitted to Auburn for the fall 2017 semester but "did not confirm his enrollment," a school spokesman said in an email to AL.com on Tuesday.

Last weekend, Fuentes, 19, told the Auburn Plainsman he was transferring from Boston University and has been admitted to Auburn and will enroll in spring 2018. However, because admission at Auburn only applies to the semester for which he was accepted, Fuentes will have to specifically apply for the spring semester.

"I want to rally the troops in terms of this new right-wing movement," Fuentes said.

As of now, the spokesman said, Fuentes has not applied for spring 2018. The deadline is October 1.

Fuentes attended BU as a freshman last year but said last week that he would not return this fall because he did not feel safe on campus after attending the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, VA, which featured protests by white supremacists and neo-Nazis over the city's decision to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee. They clashed with hundreds of anti-protesters, which included members of the extreme-left group ANTIFA.

Fuentes, who says the rally was conceived to "talk about not replacing white people," says he received threats of physical violence -- even death threats -- after the rally and was looking forward to transferring to Auburn.

"Auburn University is a more wholesome campus," he told the Plainsman. "It has better weather and better people. And ultimately I think it will be friendlier territory."

"I'm ready to return to my base, return to my roots," he's also been quoted as saying, "and see what I can do down there."

On his You Tube show "America First" -- which airs on the Right Side Broadcasting Network (founded and based in Auburn) -- Fuentes, who says he is 25 percent Mexican, frequently and unabashedly shares his vile, alt-right views on race ("You can only discriminate against white people in the marketplace now"), immigration ("multiculturalism is a cancer that has destroyed nations") and the media ("it's "time to kill the globalists" who run the industry).

In a statement, the university said:

"As a public university, Auburn does not consider political views as a criterion for admission. However, we seek students, faculty and staff who uphold the fundamental values of fairness, individual worth, character and academic excellence. We stand strongly against those who advocate hatred, bigotry, racism or violence."

The following is a "mock" essay Fuentes might submit, if he applies, based on things he has said in interviews and on his show:

I'm so glad I was in Charlottesville. I was comfortable there because a lot of people had guns, just like in Alabama. Sure, we went to protest the removal of the statue of Robert E. Lee, but we were really there to talk about not replacing white people, about the general transformation of the composition of our country--which the mainstream media and a lot of people don't want to talk about.

You can only discriminate against white people in the marketplace now. Take Google, for instance," Google 'American inventors' and see what comes up. Go ahead. You'll see George Washington Carver first, a guy who invented peanut butter or something, not Thomas Edison, who invented the light bulb and electricity... oh wait, maybe that was Ben Franklin. Anyway, you also see Madame Walker, Garrett Morgan, and Elijah McCoy before you get to Edison. I've never heard of those other guys! So who is Google revising and inflating their roles, and who are they excluding?

My mom thinks I'm sort of racist bigot because I want my people to stay alive. But I'm not a white supremacist. I just believe multiculturalism is a cancer. Political correctness and the multicultural movement in America are subverting any effort that a conservative could ever make to change the country, but the rootless transnational elite knows that a tidal wave of white identity is coming. And they know that once the word gets out, they will not be able to stop us. The fire rises!

I know this all sounds kind of odd given my last name. I'm 25 percent Mexican. I see no contradiction because I was raised by my parents in Chicago's Le Grange Park area as an American first, and everything else second. My ancestors left Mexico to become Americans, not to bring Mexico to America, and to make America more like Mexico. So I've always seen that as being totally not incompatible with being Hispanic.

The First Amendment, by the way, was not written for Muslims or immigrants. They're invaders to our nation.

Modern women repulse me. When I say 'modern' I don't mean contemporary. I mean women who products of modernism or post-modernism. Most of the women people my age interact with are vulgar, coarse, repulsive people. This is true of men and women, but part of the virtue of being a woman is being pleasant, and that's just absent from the modern woman, who swears and wears God knows what--if anything--on a given day. The way they drink, smoke pot. Women who are worthy are few and far between.

My time at Boston University was really something special, though the classes were not challenging. I actually drifted much further to the Right than most of my Republican classmates during my time there and would prefer to go to a school where the majority of the student body doesn't agree with me, or worse. They say we're the hateful ones but I get hateful messages from people all day long whom I've never met telling me what a terrible person I am, threatening me with death or physical harm. I hate no one.

I could go anywhere in the country and be safer than I was in Boston.

Auburn's statement infers that it may "stand strongly" against someone advocating a "tidal wave of white identity"--someone like Fuentes.

If he applies (the deadline for Spring semester enrollment is October 1, according to the school's website), he should not be accepted.

Academically, Fuentes is undoubtedly a smart young man with leadership potential. (Indeed, he was student council president at Lyons Township High School). On his self-produced show, he speaks almost extemporaneously for more than an hour, non-stop, relying only on handwritten notes.

He also has charisma almost reminiscent of, dare I say, a young Donald Trump, whom he openly supported, including donning one of those ubiquitous red caps around the Boston University campus. (Maybe not the smartest of ideas in the Northeast.)

And his marketing skills, also seemingly copied from the Trump playbook, speak for themselves.

He dresses well and looks like a reasonable young man--until he opens his mouth and begins espousing his delusional ideal of an all-white America (which it never was, by the way) in which immigrants (like his ancestors) are "invaders" who part of a "cancer" that threatens to "replace white people."

Universities should, ideally, be places where young people with differing perspectives learn not just to coexist but, most important, to exchange ideas and listen to fellow students who think differently with the goal of at least understanding the other side's perspective.

From what he said, that would be far from Fuentes' goal at Auburn.

He would not be coming to learn, but to nurture the hateful ideas of separatism and worse, "recruit" others to his dangerous positions and see what I can do down there.

That alone should have been enough for someone in the Auburn admissions office to stamp "reject" on his application for spring, should he apply.

In June, Harvard pulled the acceptances of 10 prospective members of its Class of 2021 when it was found that they exchanged racist and sexually offensive memes and messages in a closed chat group on Facebook. At one point, the group called itself: "Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens"

The move sent a very strong message about the types of views and actions that won't be tolerated at one of the nation's most prestigious universities.

Fuentes' words aren't just inappropriate banter among immature young people, but Neanderthal rantings that will do nothing to elevate the dialogue among students at Auburn and prepare them to be part of the solution America needs rather than the problem it now confronts.

And then, the youngster might be at least a tad delusional if he believes he would walk onto an Auburn campus that would welcome him with flower petals. In fact, he might want to google what transpired in May prior to alt-right leader Richard Spencer's on-off, court-ordered speech on campus.

Hundreds of people representing both sides of the controversial appearance gathered outside James E. Foy Hall, where Spencer was speaking. The protests were mostly peaceful, but one person was bloodied and at least three were arrested.

After Spencer was whisked away, tensions largely subsided and normalcy returned.

Fuentes' presence could alter that tremendously, and to the benefit of whom?

Better than continuing his education at Auburn, perhaps Fuentes should enroll at Alabama State, Alabama A&M, Tuskegee University or any one of the 18 historically black colleges in our state.

Personally, I'd love to see what he could do down there.

(Story was unpdated at 5:23 on 8/21 with Auburn statement regarding Fuentes and admissions policy, then again at 6:10 with Auburn confirmation that Fuentes had not applied, not been admitted. On 8/22, story was updated with Auburn's clarification about Fuentes' earlier admission.)



Roy S. Johnson's column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and AL.com. Write him at rjohnson@al.com.