Lexie Shadix, Campus Carrier deputy news editor

On January 15, protesters marched from Tate Plaza to the arch at the University of Georgia to express disdain for George Haynie, a UGA staff member in the College of Engineering machine shop, regarding his involvement in the Aryan Freedom Network (AFN). The AFN was formed in Texas and now has chapters in 25 US states. Members embrace antisemitic, racist and other hateful ideals. Haynie was discovered to be hosting AFN gatherings at his home in Lexington, a small town outside of Athens.

“I first learned about it, kind of unofficially, it was more just a rumor,” Jacob Harris, a freshman majoring in computer science who organized the protest, said. 

Social media posts concerning a neo-Nazi festival being held 30 minutes away from the university surfaced in late October. Then, in December, UGA emailed the students in their College of Engineering informing them there were neo-Nazis on the campus, which the university was investigating. 

“When I saw that email, I was really shocked,” Harris said. “Not just of the fact that there was a worker on campus who hosted the festival, but also the fact that UGA was actively trying to sweep it under the rug by only sending [that information] to students in the College of Engineering.” 

Other students heard about Haynie’s involvement with neo-Nazi groups through various clubs and group chats and experienced similar feelings of shock and disgust. 

“I learned about it through the Athens Young Democratic Socialist of America chapter,” Joseph Briggs, a sophomore majoring in political science and international affairs and member of the Young Democrats, said. “I couldn’t believe that there was somebody working at the university who wants, essentially, students in camps and executed. That’s the hallmark of Nazi ideology, they want vulnerable [people] dead.” 

Harris took decisive action and gathered a group of students who also disapproved of UGA’s decision. They got advice from other student organizations on campus and from organizations around the general Athens and Atlanta area. Various organizations, such as the Young Democrats and Young Democratic Socialists of America, helped spread information about the protest. Harris also contacted the UGA police department to ensure there were no traffic issues and all participants were aware of the safety protocols. They had 50 people participate in the march and 100 people participate in total. 

“We hoped to spread awareness about his involvement,” Harris said. “And not only that but also encourage UGA to start having these conversations with students about their decision to reinstate Haynie. This is a really controversial issue, and I don’t think they should try to hide it away from students.” 

After being placed on administrative leave during the investigation, Haynie was reinstated. He has denied direct involvement with the organization and UGA has said they found no evidence he violated university policy. The UGA College of Engineering released a statement saying that they could not discipline employees for “personal, off-campus expressive activity, no matter how offensive or repugnant those activities may be.” 

“I think that free speech is a right that need to be protected,” Elijah King, a freshman at UGA and member of the Young Democrats, said. “But I think that there is a line that needs to be drawn and there [is] a notable difference between freedom of speech and freedom of consequence. Freedom of speech does not necessarily indicate that there is not some sort of consequence for your hateful views. I do think that it has become a campus matter. It’s no longer a worker at the school idly doing whatever they want off campus, it is someone who has now created an intense situation affecting all sorts of students, staff     and faculty negatively.”  

In 2016, a similar event occurred in Rome. One hundred members of the National Socialist Movement (NSM), a neo-Nazi organization based in the United States, organized a march downtown. Board member Brian Hill originally created a petition to prevent the group from coming to Rome but, unable to prohibit entry, Rome community members organized the Turn Your Back on Hate silent protest. 

“I felt concerned about the presence of a group that represented an ideology that’s grounded in a history of violence,” Jeffrey Lidke, a professor of Asian religions at Berry, who participated in the protest, said. 

The group organized the protest alongside the police department, which provided a training session to participants at Berry College. Participants were instructed to stand together, completely silently, facing the neo-Nazis’ rally. Then, they were to turn their backs and walk away. 

“The more we stood there, silently, [the neo-Nazis] looked more ridiculous,” Jessie Reed, one of the organizers of the protest, said. “Sometimes when you’re silent, you let somebody else open their mouth and expose the fool within.” 

Even though tensions were high, organizers ensured that the protest remained peaceful. 

“We had these teal shirts that said, ‘Turn your back on hate’ on the front and then on the back it was a heart with [the word] ‘Rome,’” Reed said. “I really think that it became a unifying thing for the whole group. To get the shirt you had to agree to our set of rules, and you had to agree to be peaceful. There were restrictions on what kinds of signs you could hold [as well], and people really did follow that.” 

Reed felt as though the shirts made people feel a part of something. And, in the end, the group managed to convey the message they had set out to. 

“Our main goal was to show solidarity within the community and have a clear message,” Reed said. “We were going to control the narrative so that the narrative wasn’t ‘Rome welcomes, with open arms, neo-Nazis.’”

Around 300 people attended the protest. Several Berry students, brought by Lidke and John Hickman, professor of international affairs, were among them. 

“We do have to honor people’s rights to free speech,” Lidke said. “But we also have to be critically aware of how nations can devolve into fascist authoritarian states and the violence that can come out of that.” 

The struggle against neo-Nazism and other extremist groups is not a new fight. And this event in Athens has clearly showed that it is a fight that is still ongoing. Harris, along with other students, have created an unofficial organization called Athens Against Hate with the hopes of turning it into an official organization soon. 

“Our goal moving forward is to continue to spread awareness about [Haynie’s] involvement [in the neo-Nazi group] and to make it clear that this is a very important issue to hold attention to,” Harris said. 

Ultimately, hate groups such as the AFN or the NSM cannot be fought by one person. It is essential for a community to work together to stop the spread of these organizations. 

“I think in order to stop the spread of these hate groups, we have to realize, as the community, that this is not a political issue but an issue that affects everyone in our community,” Harris said. “Only after we unify as a community to address it and spread awareness can we then actually slow the spread of these hate groups.” 

And when people do not organize, seemingly empty threats can turn into actions. 

 “I remember hearing somewhere that there’s a saying in Germany that goes: ‘If you sit down to dinner with a Nazi, you’re a Nazi,’” Briggs said. “When universities don’t take a decisive stand against intolerance, bigotry and hate, then they are ultimately complicit with that. There doesn’t need to be a conversation around Nazism, there needs to be a response or decisive action. The response needs to be that we will not tolerate people who want to make the rest of us feel unsafe.”

While it may seem like nothing can be done, that is simply not the case. The voices of students and community members do hold weight on issues such as these. 

“I think that student voices are the most important voices because, whether the university likes it or not, students are the constituents,” King said. “If you have mass bodies of students crying out and [holding] protests, [the university] should be putting those concerns over that of the single employee.”

For more information about the upcoming actions of Athens Against Hate, people can visit their Instagram, @athens_against_hate. For those who want to support the fight against hate, there is no shortage of on an off-campus organizations that are currently working to spread awareness and combat this issue.