White Nationalist Heading to U. of Fla. for Speech; Officials on Edge

At the University of Florida, police and students shared a moment of prayer Wednesday night - bracing for what may come on Thursday.

White nationalist Richard Spencer is set to speak inside the school’s performing arts center at 2:30 p.m. It’s an event that has some students fired up, with some saying they feel unsafe and unwelcome.

The school initially said it would not approve an application for the speech from the National Policy Institute before reversing course, saying while they disapprove of Spencer’s message, he has a First Amendment right to speak at the public university.

Spencer preaches a fiery brand of politics and looks to preserve a white majority in America. The leader of the conservative alt-right movement recently spoke of his First Amendment right and his upcoming speech in Gainesville.

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"This is where the rubber hits the road, this is where free speech is really meaningful," he said in an alt-right podcast online. "It's not just some abstract concept. I mean every single American citizen, if you ask them, 'Do you support free speech?' 99.9 percent of them say ‘Yes, of course we love free speech.'"

Spencer was one of the organizers of the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August - an event that became deadly when a vehicle plowed into a crowd of people and left one woman dead and several others injured.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott and other top state officials are urging people to ignore Spencer and his event. On Tuesday, he even declared a state of emergency to direct resources to ensure the community's safety during the event.

"The values of our universities are not shared by Mr. Spencer, the National Policy Institute or his followers," UF President W. Kent Fuchs said in a taped message earlier this week. "Our campuses are places where people from all races, origins and religions are welcome and or treated with love."

Fuchs estimates the school will spend $600,000 on security for Spencer's planned speech. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the government, in this case a public university, cannot charge speakers for security costs.

Spencer's National Policy Institute is paying $10,564 to rent space for the speaking event.