Self-described white nationalist Nicholas Fuentes announced in a YouTube video Monday that he will be coming to Iowa to speak on a college campus Wednesday.

Fuentes, 20, is the host of the controversial podcast and YouTube video series, “America First.” He was in attendance of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.

He also comes with controversy. When Fuentes attempted to speak at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in September 2018, the national chapter of the group hosting “Young Americans for Liberty” disbanded the chapter.

“YAL abhors any racism and will not associate with any speaker who believes that individuals receive their rights based on color of their skin. Our beliefs are simple: liberty for ALL Americans,” according to a statement provided by the national chapter.

This time, however, Fuentes wants to to keep the visit under wraps. Or at least as “hush hush” as it can get by announcing the event to his 22,560 YouTube subscribers, 10,000 of which viewed the livestream.

“My first ever campus speech … will be taking place this Wednesday in Iowa, and there will be more details to come on that,” Fuentes said.

Fuentes said he would not be giving any details until the day of.

The Iowa State Daily was first made aware of Fuentes’ visit Feb. 27 after an anonymous source attended a College Republicans meeting and learned about the event from a Turning Point representative who had asked to speak.

From there, Daily reporters and editors worked to confirm the time, date and location of the event. While we were provided this information initially, we decided to remove it from the breaking news story due to additional sources failing to confirm. Those same sources were unable to provide a new time, date and location.

While the Daily felt secure in its initial sourcing, we decided it best to leave the date and time out as all sources were able to confirm that Fuentes would be at Iowa State Wednesday, in general. Editors decided this in and of itself was sufficient to run.

The Iowa State Daily also felt it important to report on Nick Fuentes’ intent to visit Iowa State before he confirmed the information directly through his YouTube show. The Daily felt that the Iowa State community deserved to know of Fuentes’ presence on campus.

No matter one’s right to speech, Fuentes’ ideologies are too far leaning and bigoted for many political organizations, such as Young Americans for Liberty. According to the Turning Point USA Speakers Bureau website, Fuentes is not listed as an authorized speaker.

Students deserve to know what speakers are coming to campus, no matter what. With this event bypassing the proper authorizations, students were not properly allotted the opportunity to use their speech to respond.

“We have to be very hush hush on the details because, you know, the last time it didn’t go so hot,” Fuentes said in the YouTube video. “We’re trying to keep it on the down low a little bit, trying to evade some controversy, evade the press a little bit, but that is coming up, and I’m very excited.”

One cannot espouse free speech and at the same time hide it from the audience in which they feel would react negatively to their ideologies. By not making it known Fuentes would be coming to campus, the individuals involved did just that.

To use a quote from Fuentes in a tweet after his first campus speech was canceled, “it’s important for them to maintain the façade that they support free speech. What they really want is controlled free speech.”