Ohio passed a law to protect speech on campus. Then came a podcaster and his Nazi salutes

It was less than 60 seconds into the event that the keynote speaker, invited by Ohio University students with prior notice to school officials, held his arm to the sky in a Sieg Heil salute, leading a “let’s go Nazis” chant. 

The repetitions of the gesture, understood as a show of fealty to Adolf Hitler during his reign, were more trademark than aberration for 36-year-old podcaster and conservative provocateur Myron Gaines. A new student organization on campus, Uncensored America, invited him, school officials say.

Speaking to a crowd of mostly male students on the campus’ picturesque College Green, Gaines baselessly questioned the historical consensus that about 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust, claiming the number is “utilized to justify museums, memorials and foreign policy.” He described some women as “sl-ts for recreational use only” and repeatedly called the students who heckled him “f-‌-‌-‌-‌ts.”

Perhaps his harshest words came in the first minute via a deliberately incendiary line he repeats at colleges around the U.S. 

“We’ll just go through this real quick. Number one, women are stupid. Jews control America. Blacks are criminals,” he said, opening the event (Gaines is a Black man). 

“Today’s topic is ‘Bring back sl-t shaming.’”

The 3.5 hours of incendiary remarks from Gaines, mere yards away from where Lyndon B. Johnson first described his ‘War on Poverty’ in 1964, underscore some schools’ legal and political inability, or unwillingness, to prohibit speech that critics described as naked antisemitism, sexism and more. 

And it crystallizes the 21st-century online enragement-as-engagement business model. Gaines has posted footage of the full event to his 547,000 YouTube subscribers, with smaller excerpts of him jousting with liberal students who took to an open mic, with titles like “Liberal Got COOKED For Thinking Women Are EQUAL To Men!”

Gaines’ style of public confrontations with liberal students mimics that of Charlie Kirk, a conservative podcaster and operative who was slain at an event at Utah Valley University last year. It comes as both President Donald Trump’s administration and state Republican lawmakers continue to put higher education under a microscope, including by passing laws and threatening reductions of funds to curb what they describe as a liberal bias on campus.

Gaines visited Ohio University late last month, part of a tour that has included Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and other major public universities. His inflammatory remarks in Athens were predictable to anyone with internet access or a Netflix subscription. 

Gov. Mike DeWine, speaking at a Holocaust memorial event at the Statehouse on Monday, included Gaines’ event on a list with violent antisemitic attacks around the world, and different flare ups of antisemitism or white nationalism around Ohio, all in the past year. 

“He [Gaines] greeted students on campus with a Nazi salute and claimed that women are stupid, Jews control America, and Blacks are criminals,” DeWine said during his remarks to a crowd that included a Holocaust survivor. “These are just some of the reasons why we have come together today. We simply cannot tolerate this.”

Speaking to reporters afterward, DeWine declined to say whether Gaines’ remarks amounted to the kinds of free speech the Constitution protects. 

But the governor, whose father helped the Allied forces liberate the Jewish concentration camps at Dachau, said it’s the duty of any public official to reject it. 

“If there’s speech like that, it should be denounced,” he said. “It should be denounced immediately.”

University invokes freedom of speech 

But at Ohio University, the state’s oldest, the response was far more tempered. Spokesperson Dan Pittman declined to say whether Gaines’ remarks – which included calling students “dreidel spinners” and various gay slurs – amounted to harassment, which school policy says is not constitutionally protected.

“While the University is not legally permitted to prohibit free speech, including controversial speech, on its public grounds, appropriate steps were taken to preserve peace and ensure unrestricted travel on campus while it took place,” he said. 

“The University is also aware of the ways in which some instances of protected speech can personally impact various members of our community, and we remain committed to addressing these impacts when appropriate.”

Ohio University President Lori Stewart Gonzalez told the university’s student newspaper last month – before Gaines’ appearance – that the school and its leadership must remain neutral on political issues so as not to alienate people. 

“There are all sorts of things where the majority of Americans feel this way, but we don’t have very many things that 100% of Americans (agree on), and that’s the same thing on our campus,” she said. 

A student organization registry lists Andrew Conner as the primary contact for Uncensored America, which invited Gaines. The organization, which has chapters on a dozen campuses nationwide, reportedly launched its Athens group less than two months ago.

Conner declined an interview, offering to speak only under condition of anonymity, and said he didn’t know why he was listed as the chapter’s contact.

“Myself and others in the organization have been receiving threatening messages and people have contacted members of our respective families, so this is mainly a safety and privacy concern,” he said, explaining his declining to speak on the record. 

Controversy tests GOP lawmakers’ campus crackdown

Gaines’ appearance marks one of the first major campus speaker controversies since Ohio lawmakers passed a law overhauling how public higher education works in the state last year. 

Senate Bill 1, signed into law by DeWine last year, ended diversity, equity and inclusion work amid a sweep of other changes aimed to curb what they call an overly liberal campus culture. The bill requires schools to let students reach their own conclusions about all “controversial beliefs or policies” and prohibits them from trying to “indoctrinate” them politically. 

The law also requires schools to prioritize so-called intellectual diversity, defined as having “multiple, divergent, and varied perspectives on an extensive range of public policy issues,” and makes colleges prioritize inviting speakers with diverse ideological views. 

Concerns over Holocaust deniers came up frequently during Senate Bill 1’s marathon opponent hearings last spring. In one example, the ACLU of Ohio said the now-law’s language would force professors to “include the perspective, opinions, and justifications of those who orchestrated those mass murders.”  

State Sen. Casey Weinstein, a Jewish Democrat from Hudson, argued the legislation would “give a platform for Holocaust denial, conspiracy theories, or other absurd denials of truth and fact in the classroom.” 

Sen. Jerry Cirino, the Republican architect behind both Senate Bill 1 and its precursor bill, called those in denial “off the charts,” according to the Ohio Capital Journal. But, he argued, they need to be heard. 

“No one should be shouted down, as ridiculous as their views might be and as wrong as they might be,” he said in 2023. “That’s now what our universities are about. Our universities should be about accepting even views that are uncomfortable.”

Cirino didn’t return a call or text about Gaines’ event. 

Gaming free speech?

Bombastic personalities like Gaines take advantage of university free speech policies as part of an online ecosystem where creators can turn anger into attention into a financial asset, said Juli Goodman, executive director of the school’s Hillel chapter, a Jewish student organization. 

“People like that do not have the intention of creating an environment for learning,” she said. 

“They’re there to make money. And no matter their affiliation, I don’t think they serve the best interest of our students, which is what my ultimate goal is.”

Goodman also teaches as an adjunct professor of Jewish studies at Ohio University. But she said you don’t need an advanced degree to understand derogatory words used against students, Holocaust minimization or blaming Jews for world events to understand the broader message of antisemitism. 

Beyond students, she said Gaines’ event made for a hostile work environment for the women, Jews, LGBTQ+ people and other workers who keep offices on campus. But she credited the university for giving Hillel a heads-up that the event was coming. 

Rather than the young students, a population famous for “dumb” choices, Goodman said it’s the “adultier adults” who are to blame, namely Gaines himself.

“He’s the one who’s exploiting the situation and making money off of it,” she said. “And I think there’s consequences that ought to come with that. He’s taking advantage of free speech policies on the campuses, making the advantage of impressionable young people to exploit them …. That’s where the fault lies.”