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Richard Spencer
Born	Richard Bertrand Spencer (1978-05-11) May 11, 1978 (age 46) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of Virginia University of Chicago Duke University
Occupation(s)	Author, publisher
Known for	President and Director of the National Policy Institute Executive Director of Washington Summit Publishers
Movement	Alt-right Identitarian movement

Richard Bertrand Spencer (born May 11, 1978) is an American white supremacist. He is president of the National Policy Institute, a white supremacist think tank, as well as Washington Summit Publishers. Spencer has stated that he rejects the label of white supremacist, and prefers to describe himself as an identitarian. He has advocated for a white homeland for a "dispossessed white race" and called for "peaceful ethnic cleansing" to halt the "deconstruction" of European culture.

Spencer and others have said that he created the term "alt-right", which he considers a movement about white identity. Breitbart News described Spencer's website AlternativeRight.com as "a center of alt-right thought."

Spencer and his organization drew considerable media attention in the weeks following the 2016 US presidential election, where, at a National Policy Institute conference, he quoted from Nazi propaganda and denounced Jews. In response to his cry "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!", a number of his supporters gave the Nazi salute and chanted in a similar fashion to the Sieg heil chant used at the Nazis' Nuremberg rallies. Spencer has also refused to denounce Adolf Hitler.

Early life

Spencer was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of ophthalmologist Rand Spencer and Sherry Spencer (née Dickenhorst), an heiress to cotton farms in Louisiana. He grew up in Preston Hollow, Dallas, Texas. In 1997, he graduated from St. Mark's School of Texas. In 2001, Spencer received a B.A. in English Literature and Music from the University of Virginia and, in 2003, an M.A. in the Humanities from the University of Chicago. He spent the summer of 2005 and 2006 at the Vienna International Summer University. From 2005 to 2007, he was a Ph.D. student at Duke University studying modern European intellectual history, where he was a member of the Duke Conservative Union. His website says he left Duke "to pursue a life of thought-crime."

Activities

From March to December 2007, Spencer was assistant editor at The American Conservative magazine. According to founding editor Scott McConnell, Spencer was fired from The American Conservative because his views were considered too extreme. From January 2008 to December 2009, he was executive editor of Taki's Magazine.

In March 2010, Spencer founded AlternativeRight.com, a website he edited until 2012. He has stated that he created the term alt-right.

In January 2011, Spencer became Executive Director of Washington Summit Publishers. In 2012, Spencer founded Radix Journal as a biannual publication of Washington Summit Publishers. Contributions have included articles by Kevin B. MacDonald, Alex Kurtagić, and Samuel T. Francis (1947–2005). He also hosts a weekly podcast, Vanguard Radio.

In January 2011, Spencer also became President and Director of The National Policy Institute (NPI), a think tank previously based in Virginia and Montana.

In 2014, Spencer was deported from Budapest, Hungary (and because of the Schengen Agreement, is banned from 26 countries in Europe for three years), after trying to organize the National Policy Institute Conference, a conference for white nationalists.

On January 15, 2017 (Martin Luther King. Jr.'s birthday), Spencer launched AltRight.com, another commentary website for alt-right members. According to Spencer, the site is a populist and big tent site for members of the alt-right. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the common thread among contributors as antisemitism, rather than white nationalism or white supremacism in general.  Notable contributors on AltRight.com include Henrik Palmgren, Brittany Pettibone, and Jared Taylor.

On February 23, 2017, Spencer was removed from the Conservative Political Action Conference where he was giving statements to the press. A CPAC spokesman said he was removed from the event because other members found him "repugnant".

On May 13, 2017, Spencer led a torch-lit protest in Charlottesville, Virginia against the vote of the city council to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the American Civil War. Spencer led the crowd in chants of "You will not replace us" and "Blood and soil." Michael Signer, the mayor of Charlottesville, called the protest "horrific" and stated that it was either "profoundly ignorant" or intended to instill fear among minorities "in a way that hearkens back to the days of the KKK."

In August 2017, Spencer was given hierarchical primacy on poster advertisements for the Charlottesville, Virginia Unite the Right rally, which devolved into a notorious and violent confrontation.

Public speaking

Spencer was invited to speak at Vanderbilt University in 2010 and Providence College in 2011 by Youth for Western Civilization.

During a speech Spencer gave in mid-November 2016 at an alt-right conference attended by approximately 200 people in Washington, D.C., Spencer quoted Nazi propaganda in the original German and denounced Jews. Audience members cheered and made the Nazi salute when he said, "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!" Spencer later defended their conduct, stating that the Nazi salute was given in a spirit of "irony and exuberance".

Groups and events Spencer has spoken to include the Property and Freedom Society, the American Renaissance conference, and the HL Mencken Club. In November 2016, an online petition to prevent Spencer from speaking at Texas A&M University on December 6, 2016 was signed by thousands of students, employees, and alumni. A protest and a university-organized counter-event were held to coincide with Spencer's event.

On January 20, 2017, Spencer attended the inauguration of Donald Trump. As he was giving an impromptu interview on a nearby street afterwards, a masked man punched Spencer in the face, then fled. A video of the incident was posted online, leading to divergent views on whether the attack was appropriate.

Shortly after the violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017, Spencer's request to speak at the University of Florida was denied on public safety grounds after opposition from students and locals of Gainesville, Florida. Due to safety reasons, he was also denied speaking requests at Louisiana State University and Michigan State University in August 2017. In September 2017, Cameron Padgett, who tried to book Spencer, sued MSU; he was represented by Kyle Bristow, an MSU alumnus. The University of Cincinnati is going to permit him to be speak following a threatened a lawsuit. The president of the University of Cincinnati wrote a letter stating that Spencer has a First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Ohio State University was also threatened with a similar lawsuit but refused to let him speak.

Montana

In 2013, a dispute at a ski club in his hometown of Whitefish, Montana, drew public attention to Spencer and his political views.

The National Policy Institute think tank, AlternativeRight.com, and Radix Journal all use the same mailing address in Whitefish, Montana.

In 2014, local residents in Missoula, Montana, through the Whitefish City Council, initiated upon a non-discrimination resolution, and an organization called Love Lives Here, which is part of the Montana Human Rights Network, rallied against Richard Spencer's residency there.

In December 2016, Republican Representative Ryan Zinke, Republican Senator Steve Daines, Democratic Senator Jon Tester, Democratic Governor Steve Bullock and Republican Attorney General Tim Fox condemned a neo-Nazi march that had been planned for January 2017. The community of Whitefish organized in opposition to the event, and the march never occurred.

Views

Race

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Spencer has advocated for a white homeland for a "dispossessed white race" and called for "peaceful ethnic cleansing" to halt the "deconstruction" of European culture. To this end he has supported what he has called "the creation of a White Ethno-State on the North American continent", an "ideal" that he has regarded as a "reconstitution of the Roman Empire." Prior to the UK vote to leave the EU, Spencer expressed support for the multi-national bloc "as a potential racial empire" and an alternative to "American hegemony", stating that he has "always been highly skeptical of so-called 'Euro-Skeptics.'"

In 2013, the Anti-Defamation League called Spencer a leader in white supremacist circles and said that after leaving The American Conservative he rejected conservatism, because he believed its adherents "can't or won't represent explicitly white interests."

In one interview in which he was asked if he would condemn the KKK and Adolf Hitler, he refused, saying "I’m not going to play this game," while stating that Hitler had "done things that I think are despicable," without elaborating on which things he was referring to.

In a 2016 interview for Time magazine, Spencer said he rejected white supremacy and the slavery of nonwhites, preferring to establish America as a white ethnostate.

Spencer supports legal access to abortion, in part because he believes it would reduce the number of black and Hispanic people, which he says would be a "great boon" to white people.

Homosexuality

Spencer opposes same-sex marriage, which he has described as "unnatural" and a "non-issue," commenting that "very few gay men will find the idea of monogamy to their liking."

Despite his opposition to same-sex marriage, Spencer barred people with anti-gay views from the NPI's annual conference in 2015.

Donald Trump

Spencer supported Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and called Trump's victory "the victory of will," a phrase echoing the title of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1935), a Nazi-era propaganda film. Upon Trump's appointment of Steve Bannon as chief White House strategist and senior counselor, Spencer said Bannon would be in "the best possible position" to influence policy.

Personal life

In 2010, Spencer moved to Whitefish, Montana. He says he splits his time between Whitefish and Arlington, Virginia, although he has said he has lived in Whitefish for over 10 years, and considers it home. As of 2017 Spencer was renting a house in Alexandria, Virginia.

He was separated from his Russian American wife, Nina Kouprianova, in October 2016; however, in April 2017 Spencer said he and his wife were not separated and are still together.

Spencer is an atheist. He has also described himself as a "cultural Christian."

References

1. • Peoples, Steve (July 24, 2016). "Energized white supremacists cheer Trump convention message". Associated Press. Cleveland, OH.
   • Wines, Michael; Saul, Stephanie (July 5, 2015). "White Supremacists Extend Their Reach Through Websites". The New York Times.
   • Gelin, Martin (November 13, 2014). "White Flight: America's white supremacists are ignored at home. So they are looking to start over with a little help from Europe's far right". Slate. Budapest, Hungary.
   • Chris Welch and Sara Ganim, White Supremacist Richard Spencer: 'We reached tens of millions of people' with video, CNN, December 6, 2016. "Now Spencer, a 38-year-old white supremacist and founder of the so-called alt-right movement, is taking his rhetoric on the road..."
   • Mangan, Katherine. "A push to 'expand white privilege': Richard B. Spencer president, National Policy Institute, a white-supremacist group." The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 9, 2016, A6+.
   • Zalman, Jonathan. "Neo-Nazi Website Tells Readers to 'Take Action' Against Jews on Behalf of Richard Spencer's Mother in Montana." Tablet Magazine, December 19, 2016. "Critics of Richard Spencer the white supremacist, alt-right leader who dreams of an "ethno-state"are making their voices heard..."
   • "Campus clashes as US white supremacist gives speech." London Evening Standard , 7 Dec. 2016, p. 22. "Hundreds of demonstrators clashed with riot police at a protest against a white supremacist's speech at a leading American university. Richard Spencer, who gained notoriety for holding a so-called "alt-right" meeting celebrating Donald Trump's election triumph with Nazi rhetoric, told students attending the speech at the Texas A&M University last night: 'At the end of the day, America belongs to white men.'"
   • Gretel Kauffman, "Donald Trump again disavows so-called alt-right supporters", Christian Science Monitor, November 23, 2016. "Richard Spencer, coiner of the term "alt-right" and head of the white supremacist National Policy Institute..."
   • Gretel Kauffman, "White supremacists convene in celebration of Trump victory", Christian Science Monitor, November 20, 2016. The annual conference of the National Policy Institute, a white supremacist think tank, experienced a rise in attendance this year... 'It’s been an awakening,' Richard Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute, said at the conference."
2. Maya Oppenheim (2017-01-23). "Alt-right leader Richard Spencer worries getting punched will become 'meme to end all memes'". The Independent. Retrieved 2017-02-25.
3. Ehrenfreund, Max (November 21, 2016). "What the alt-right really wants, according to a professor writing a book about them". Washington Post. Retrieved November 24, 2016.
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5. ^ Lombroso, Daniel; Appelbaum, Yoni (November 21, 2016). "'Hail Trump!': White Nationalists Salute the President-Elect" (Includes excerpted video). The Atlantic. Retrieved January 23, 2017.
6. Spencer, Richard (August 6, 2008). "The Conservative Write". Taki's Magazine.
7. "Alternative Right". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved November 22, 2016.
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9. ^ Goldstein, Joseph (November 20, 2016). "Alt-Right Exults in Donald Trump's Election With a Salute: 'Heil Victory'". The New York Times.
10. David Corn (2016-11-14). "Here's Why It's Fair—and Necessary—to Call Trump's Chief Strategist a White Nationalist Champion". Mother Jones. Retrieved 2017-03-14.
11. ^ Bandler, Aaron (November 25, 2016). "5 Things To Know About Alt-Right Leader Richard Spencer". The Daily Wire. Retrieved March 14, 2017. "Hitler is a historical figure," he said. "He's done things that I think are despicable. I'm not going to play this game."
12. Burghart, Devin (June 27, 2014). "Who is Richard Spencer?". IREHR. Retrieved December 7, 2016.
13. ^ Harkinson, Josh (October 27, 2016). "Meet The Dapper White Nationalist Who Wins Even If Trump Loses". Mother Jones.
14. Williams, Lance (March 17, 2017). "White Nationalist Richard Spencer Gets His Money From Louisiana Cotton Fields—and the US Government". Mother Jones.
15. ^ Wood, Graeme (June 2017). "His Kampf". The Atlantic. Retrieved May 16, 2017. In 2011, he moved from Washington to Whitefish, Montana, where his mother owns a vacation home and a commercial building. (She is the heiress to cotton farms in Louisiana, and his father is a respected Dallas ophthalmologist.)
16. Downs, Caleb (November 16, 2016). "For white nationalists, Trump win a dream come true, says alt-right leader from Dallas". The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved August 23, 2017. He was born in Massachusetts but moved to the Preston Hollow neighborhood of Dallas when he was about 2 years old.
17. Stadler, Friedrich. "Statement on behalf of the Institute Vienna Circle" (PDF). Institute Vienna Circle. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
18. "About". RichardBSpencer.com. Retrieved November 22, 2016.
19. ^ "Alternative Right". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved November 22, 2016.
20. ^ Kirchick, James (October 18, 2014). "A Racist's Crazy Ski Resort Smackdown". The Daily Beast.
21. The Great Erasure (Radix Journal)
22. OPP HQ (November 23, 2014). "A New Building Goes Up in Montana – Courtesy of White Supremacist Dick Spencer". One People's Project. Whitefish, MT.
23. Gelin, Martin (November 13, 2014). "White Flight: America's white supremacists are ignored at home. So they are looking to start over with a little help from Europe's far right". Slate. Budapest, Hungary.
24. Pintér, Sándor (September 29, 2014). "Minister of Interior bans racist conference". Website of the Hungarian Government.
25. "Alt Right Moving From Online to Real-World Activity". blog.adl.org. Retrieved 2017-02-22.
26. Wilson, Jason (2017-01-25). "The weakening of the 'alt-right': how infighting and doxxing are taking a toll". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-02-22.
27. "Richard Spencer and White Supremacists Aim for Bigger Platform With 'AltRight.com'". The Forward. Retrieved 2017-02-21.
28. "Richard Spencer Launches 'Alt-Right' Website on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Birthday". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved 2017-02-21.
29. "Arrests made as protesters clash at pro-Trump rally in Berkeley". www.msn.com. Retrieved 2017-05-24.
30. "Så vill Richard, 38, bygga en ny vit elit". Aftonbladet. Retrieved 2017-05-24.
31. "How Sweden Became "The Most Alt-Right" Country In Europe". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2017-05-24.
32. Bobic, Igor (23 Feb 2017). "White Nationalist Richard Spencer Booted Out Of CPAC". Huffington Post. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
33. "Mayor: Torch-lit protest in Charlottesville, Va. "harkens back to the days of the KKK"". Retrieved 2017-05-15.
34. ^ Hayden, Michael Edison (2017-05-14). "Mayor of Charlottesville calls pro-Confederate rallies 'horrific'". ABC News. Charlottesville, Virginia. Retrieved 2017-05-15.
35. "White nationalist Richard Spencer leads torch-bearing protesters defending Lee statue". Washington Post. Retrieved 2017-05-15.
36. "Mayor: Torch-lit protest in Charlottesville, Va. "harkens back to the days of the KKK"". Retrieved 2017-05-15.
37. "Richard Spencer Leads Group Protesting Sale Of Confederate Statue". NPR.org. Retrieved 2017-05-15.
38. nbc29.com: "ADL Lists Kessler, Other 'Unite The Right' Speakers as White Supremacists", 25 Jul 2017
39. "Richard Spencer: A Symbol Of The New White Supremacy". Anti-Defamation League. May 14, 2013. Retrieved August 20, 2017. In 2010 and 2011, leaders of the now defunct racist student group, Youth for Western Civilization, invited Spencer to speak at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee and Providence College in Rhode Island.
40. Liebelson, Dana (October 15, 2016). "Man Who Held 'Better To Grab A P***y Than To Be One' Sign At Pro-Trump Rally Has Ties To White Nationalists". The Huffington Post. Retrieved August 20, 2017. In 2010, Saucier's group invited Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who has since become a prominent member of the pro-Trump "alt-Right," to speak.
41. Barajas, Joshua. "Nazi salutes 'done in a spirit of irony and exuberance', alt-right leader says". PBS NewsHour. Retrieved November 25, 2016.
42. Southern Poverty Law Center, "[PayPal Co-Founder Peter Thiel to Address White Nationalist-Friendly “Property and Freedom Society” Conference in September," June 9, 2016.
43. Spencer, Richard (April 5, 2013). "American Renaissance Conference: Facing the Future as a Minority". The National Policy Institute.
44. Spencer, Richard (May 6, 2013). "Richard Spencer kicks off the Fourth Annual HLMC Meeting". The Mencken Club.
45. Mangan, Katherine (November 28, 2016). "Richard Spencer, White Supremacist, Describes Goals of His 'Danger Tour' to College Campuses". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved November 29, 2016.
46. Jaschik, Scott (December 7, 2016). "Protests Greet White Supremacist at Texas A&M". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved December 8, 2016.
47. "Watch White Nationalist Richard Spencer Get Punched". Time. January 20, 2017. Retrieved January 21, 2017.
48. Murphy, Paul P. "White nationalist Richard Spencer punched during interview". CNN. Retrieved 2017-01-21.
49. Stack, Liam. "Attack on Alt-Right Leader Has Internet Asking: Is It O.K. to Punch a Nazi?". New York Times. Retrieved 2017-01-22.
50. Strange, Deborah (16 August 2017). "UF denies white nationalist Richard Spencer a campus platform". The Gainesville Sun. Retrieved 18 August 2017.
51. Jaschik, Scott (August 18, 2017). "Michigan State, LSU Reject Supremacist Speaker". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
52. Ballard, Mark (August 17, 2017). "White nationalist Richard Spencer is 'not welcome' on LSU campus, university president says". The Advocate. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
53. Roll, Nick (September 5, 2017). "Richard Spencer's Group Sues Michigan State U". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
54. Jesse, David (September 3, 2017). "MSU sued by Richard Spencer's white supremacist group for refusing space on campus". Detroit Free Press. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
55. http://local12.com/news/local/uc-decides-to-allow-white-supremacist-richard-spencer-to-speak-on-campus
56. http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/education/2017/10/13/uc-president-his-hate-only-makes-our-love-you-stronger/763445001/
57. http://www.citybeat.com/news/blog/20979204/morning-news-uc-officials-mum-on-potential-white-nationalist-speaker-ohio-reps-vote-against-hurricane-relie
58. http://radio.wosu.org/post/ohio-state-rejects-richard-spencer-university-cincinnati-will-let-him-speak#stream/0
59. Baldwin, Matt (November 25, 2014). "Fight at Whitefish Mountain resort gets national spotlight". Whitefish Pilot.
60. Sakariassen, Alex (May 13, 2013). "Rachel Maddow calls out white "nationalist" nonprofit in Flathead". Missoula Independent. Segment, "Our People", starts at 2:13
61. Desch, Heidi (December 2, 2014). "Council takes stand in support of diversity". Whitefish Pilot.
62. Coffman, Keith; Johnson, Eric M. (December 27, 2016). "Montana Lawmakers Unite To Denounce Neo-Nazi Rally Plans". Forward. Retrieved December 29, 2016.
63. Beckett, Lois (5 February 2017). "How Richard Spencer's home town weathered a neo-Nazi 'troll storm'". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
64. Chris Graham (November 22, 2016). "Nazi salutes and white supremacism: Who is Richard Spencer, the 'racist academic' behind the 'Alt right' movement". The Telegraph.
65. ^ Scott, Tristan (November 26, 2014). "Who is Richard Spencer?". Flathead Beacon.
66. Spencer, Richard B. (September 28, 2016). "Facing the Future As a Minority". Radix Journal. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
67. Spencer, Richard B. (May 25, 2016). ""Euro-Skepticism" Skepticism". Radix Journal. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
68. "Richard Spencer: A Symbol Of The New White Supremacy". Anti-Defamation League. May 14, 2013.
69. Altman, Alex (April 14, 2016). "The Billionaire and the Bigots: How Donald Trump's Campaign Brought White Nationalists Out of the Shadows". Time. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)
70. Spencer, Richard B. (August 5, 2010). "The Inevitability of Gay Marriage". Radix Journal.
71. Spencer, Richard (June 26, 2013). "The End of the "Culture War"". The National Policy Institute.
72. Falvey, Rose (August 18, 2016). "Some White Nationalists Continue to Court the LGBT Community". Southern Poverty Law Center.
73. The Editorial Board (November 15, 2016). "Steve 'Turn On the Hate' Bannon, in the White House". The New York Times.
74. Spencer, Richard B. (December 2, 2014). "Defending free expression". Whitefish Pilot.
75. Spencer, Richard B. (November 26, 2014). "Skiing With The Enemy". Radix Journal.
76. Feldman, Ari (August 3, 2017). "Can Opponents Push 'Alt-Right' Leader Richard Spencer Out Of His Virginia Home?". The Forward. Retrieved August 4, 2017.
77. Spencer, Richard. "Richard Spencer's Full Q&A at Auburn University". YouTube.com. Retrieved 4 June 2017. Audience Member: Your ex-wife is a Russian American and you have a child together. Please explain that. Spencer: She's not my ex-wife. Audience Member: Or you're separated, right? Spencer: No. Audience Member: Okay, so the thing I said is that you are separated or whatever. So you're still together? Spencer: Yes
78. Spencer, Richard. "The Alt Right and Secular Humanism". AltRight.com. Retrieved 28 January 2017. McAfee: Are you religious? Do you support the Separation of Church and State? Spencer: I'm an atheist.
79. Spencer, Richard. "'We're Not Going Anywhere:' Watch Roland Martin Challenge White Nationalist Richard Spencer". YouTube.com. Retrieved 5 May 2017. Martin: Are you a Christian? Spencer: I'm an cultural Christian.

• 1978 births
• Living people
• Alt-right writers
• American atheists
• American white nationalists
• American white supremacists
• Anti-immigration politics in the United States
• Duke University alumni
• Far-right politics in the United States
• People from Dallas
• People from Whitefish, Montana
• St. Mark's School (Texas) alumni
• University of Chicago alumni
• University of Virginia alumni