A conservative student organization filed a lawsuit against Penn State this week claiming that the university violated the group’s constitutional rights through “systematic suppression of protected speech.”

Uncensored America and its president and owner, Sean Semanko, alleged two events the group sponsored at Penn State were examples of how the university’s “unwritten and ad hoc policies and practices” impose prior restraint on speakers based on their anticipated viewpoints and related controversies.

“These restrictions —manifested through denials of security and funding, forced relocation of events indoors, and outright cancellations in response to heckler’s veto — effectively censor conservative and controversial viewpoints while permitting unrestricted expression of opposing perspectives,” Semanko wrote in the complaint filed in the U.S. Middle District Court of Pennsylvania.

Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi, student affairs administrator Jeff Zapletal, and the student-run University Park Allocation Committee are also named as defendants in the suit.

An October 2022 Uncensored America event on campus featuring Gavin McInnes, the founder of the far-right Proud Boys, and conservative commentator Alex Stein was canceled at the last-minute by Penn State officials, who cited the “the threat of escalating violence.”

A large protest outside the event resulted in several clashes, and at one point masked individuals who multiple reports identified as being affiliated with a white supremacist group entered a crowd of protestors and deployed pepper spray.

Semanko wrote that “protestors” used the pepper spray and that police identified but did not charge the person responsible, “emboldening future disruptions and signaling Defendants’ tolerance for violent heckler’s veto.” The person identified in the complaint was later sentenced in New Jersey to eight years in prison for throwing smoke bombs and attempting to pepper spray a crowd while yelling “White lives matter” at an anti-racism concert.

The lawsuit also alleges that a university-sponsored counter-lecture prior to the Uncensored America event was used to “smear” McInnes and unnecessarily stirred up controversy.

On the day of the Uncensored America event, someone spit in Stein’s face “without any security or police presence to stop it,” an attendee “was physically assaulted when protesters attempted to seize his Trump hat,” and another was verbally harassed, Semanko wrote.

In August, Uncensored America says it sought funding from the University Park Allocation Committee for an outdoor debate table for an event featuring Stein and podcasters Tim Pool and Myron Gaines on the afternoon of Oct. 10 on the Old Main patio. UPAC, according to the lawsuit, rejected the request, citing “not enough police service availability,” because of the university’s Homecoming parade that night.

Over the ensuing weeks, Uncensored America alleges, student affairs told the group they would have to hold the event in a different location indoors and with a secured space that would allow for metal detectors and bag checks. The group noted that during that time period Penn State hosted ESPN’s College GameDay — which for unspecified reasons Uncensored America labeled as a “left-leaning” event — on Old Main Lawn with hundreds of attendees, and that Students for Justice in Palestine was permitted to have an “expansive” and “logistically complex” display outdoors on the HUB Lawn without indoor mandates or security denials.

The organization ultimately held a spontaneous debate table with Gaines on Oct. 14 on the Old Main patio, which Semanko wrote drew six police officers for monitoring and went off without violence.

UPAC retroactively denied the funding request “claiming the event ‘already occurred’ beyond planned dates,” according to the lawsuit

Penn State’s “unwritten policies — relying on subjective ‘police availability,’ ‘security,’ and ‘secure space’ assessments — grant unbridled discretion to suppress speech based
on anticipated controversy, constituting facial and as-applied prior restraints,” according to the complaint.

The lawsuit alleges that Penn State violated the First Amendment rights to free speech and expressive association and the 14th Amendment right to equal protection.

It seeks to have the university’s relevant policies and practices declared unconstitutional, an order enjoining Penn State “from enforcing viewpoint-based restrictions on expressive events,” and nominal and compensatory damages.