The Spartan Statue was plastered with posters containing negative speech towards Muslims and others Tuesday night, MSU Spokesperson Jason Cody confirmed.
The posters contained messages such as “Islamaphobia is just common sense,” “Fat people are f---ing gross,” and “Muslims please stop killing people.”
Spartan Statue vandalized with flyers before Milo visit, Infrastructure Planning and Facilities confirm; Milo disavows flyers @thesnews pic.twitter.com/pncoEcarMm
— Cameron Macko (@csmacko12) December 7, 2016
The posters appeared to advertise an appearance Wednesday night by controversial speaker Milo Yiannopoulos, an outspokenly conservative journalist who is currently visiting college campuses on the “Dangerous Faggot Tour.” Yiannopoulos disavowed the incident in a Facebook post earlier today, saying he was “absolutely disgusted with the hateful posters.”
Cody said MSU Infrastructure Planning and Facilities, or IPF, cleaned up the posters this morning after it was brought to their attention.
“There were some fliers put up, IPF took them down, as they do with any kind of case of inappropriate fliers or vandalism or anything they gave MSU Police a heads-up,” Cody said. “We don’t know who did it, we just know they were up and we took them down.”
Cody said anyone who has information regarding who put up the fliers is strongly encouraged to contact MSU Police.
Spartans for Free Speech, or SFS, the group currently listed as the host for Yiannopoulos' event, called the fliers 'disgusting' upon being reached for comment. Yiannopoulos was originally invited by the MSU branch of Young Americans for Liberty in July, but stated Dec. 1 they had transferred event control to SFS.
"We are being threatened and individually attacked for a speaker we invited to speak at our campus, so we aren't exactly keen on throwing around any of our names," an SFS spokesperson said. "We don't condone any (of) this behavior."
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