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Journalist Andy Ngo says Dartmouth College legitimized Antifa by caving to violent threats and canceling his event
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Journalist Andy Ngo says Dartmouth College legitimized Antifa by caving to violent threats and canceling his event

Dartmouth College in New Hampshire canceled an event featuring journalist Andy Ngo after the school received numerous threats of violence from Antifa activists.

In an op-ed for the New York Post, Ngo recounted that he had been invited to speak last Thursday by the Dartmouth chapters of College Republicans and Turning Point USA. The topic of the talk was going to be "Extremism in America," and Ngo was featured because of his courageous reporting on Antifa violence in the face of violent attacks directed toward him.

But last Thursday, when the event was scheduled to take place, college administrators decided to switch the in-person talk to an online-only lecture. According to the New Hampshire Journal, people who arrived for the event were turned away by security, even those who had traveled hours to see Ngo and co-speaker Gabriel Nadales, a former member of California militant leftist groups.

"Soon after the event was announced, Antifa and its army of online trolls threatened violence to shut it down," Ngo wrote for the Post. "In turn, Dartmouth administrators gave the extremists exactly what they wanted: The Hanover, NH, college canceled the in-person event at the last minute, citing vague 'safety issues.'"

In a statement to the New Hampshire Journal, Dartmouth College's Associate Vice President for Communications Diana Lawrence said the event was switched to online-only because the school and local police could not guarantee the safety of attendees.

“In light of concerning information from Hanover police regarding safety issues, similar concerns expressed by the College Republican leadership, and challenges with the student organization’s ability to staff a large public event and communicate effectively (including dissemination of the visitor policy and a prohibition on bags in the building), the college has requested that the ‘Extremism in America’ panel be moved online,” Lawrence said.

The Journal reported that there was no visible presence of protesters Thursday night.

Ngo wrote that Antifa activists made violent threats in the days leading up to the canceled event.

"About a week prior to the scheduled event, the group Northeast Antifa published a disturbing flyer featuring a photograph of my bloodied face from when an Antifa mob beat me in 2019 in Portland, Ore. I was hospitalized for a brain hemorrhage from that assault and robbery," he wrote.

He cited a tweet from the Antifa group that announced: “Anti-fascists from all over New England will be mobilizing January 20th, 2022 at Dartmouth College to disrupt and prevent fascist propagandists like Andy Ngo from normalizing their reactionary beliefs on college campuses in the Northeast.”

Ngo also wrote that Northeast Antifa threatened him personally on Instagram, posting: "This is to Andy Ngo himself: when you f*** with us you are not f***ing with college students. When you enter our home you start playing by our rules, not yours. New England is anti-fascist, and we will hold that line until death.”

This threat and others from leftist groups were met with what Ngo described as a "robust and commendable response" from Hanover police, Lebanon police, and the Grafton County Sheriff's Office. Police officers were deployed to secure the lecture hall where Ngo and Nadales were scheduled to speak.

Even so, school administrators canceled the live event, and Ngo criticized the school's action.

"Antifa’s response was unsurprising. But what should surprise us is Dartmouth College’s decision to legitimize Antifa’s cancel strategy. The crowdsourced online threats were bluffs meant to force the rest of us into self-censorship," Ngo wrote.

"The lack of condemnation from the New Hampshire chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and other so-called civil rights groups signals that those actions are permissible. By giving in, Dartmouth just handed Antifa a blueprint on shutting down future events. And sure enough, the same Antifa accounts that made the threats took a victory lap," he added.

Indeed, Antifa groups celebrated the cancellation of Ngo's event.

"Andy Ngo got his event canceled by @dartmouth tonight. To antifascists, that is a win for all of us," the group posted on Twitter.

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