UCLA Student Said to Be Involved in Jan. 6 Insurrection - Part 2

From the LA Times: In March 2020, UCLA student Matthew Richard went on Twitter and called for the university to investigate and expel fellow undergrad Christian Secor. He posted a thread with 21 recent tweets from the account of Secor, who founded America First Bruins, a far-right student group. “Anyone else cop the Hitler sneakers?” one tweet read. “Can ICE just cough on illegals or something?” read another.

Outrage followed. Students complained to administrators. More than 30,000 people liked a Twitter post by one student who asked, “Ya’ll think UCLA can expel someone for xenophobia and wishing death upon undocumented ppl during a pandemic?”

Secor was arrested Tuesday and charged with federal crimes for his alleged role in the U.S. Capitol riot. But long before he was identified as having sat in the chair Vice President Mike Pence had vacated, the 22-year-old had stirred up tensions over free speech at UCLA. “In our opinion, this was not some random action that occurred,” said Naomi Riley, a senior and president of UCLA’s Undergraduate Students Assn. Council. “Him showing up at the Capitol was not out of the ordinary. It was very in line with what has been going on within that organization.” ...

“UCLA, being a government institution, is bound by the requirements of the 1st Amendment,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino. “One of the benefits of a free society is having the government not censor for the most part what we can hear.” That protection extended to Secor...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-02-21/ucla-student-charged-in-capitol-riot-had-stirred-political-tensions-at-ucla