A group calling itself “Friends Against Fascism Organization” announced it would hold a “tailgate” party on the University of Virginia campus Friday evening to burn American flags while serving “burgers, dogs and refreshing beverages.”
White House rapid response strategist Greg Price shared the group’s flyer on X.
However, the legitimacy of the “organization” planning the protest in the parking lot prior to a UVA volleyball match Friday night remains unclear. The university has never heard of the group.
The event is ostensibly in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order in August to prosecute flag burning when it incites violent crime.
In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that burning the American flag was protected speech under the First Amendment.
The Trump executive order seeks to circumvent that ruling by calling for the prosecution of “those who incite violence or otherwise violate our laws while desecrating this symbol of our country,” according to the order.
Kirk Wolff, a University of Virginia Law School student and reportedly a U.S. Navy veteran and U.S. Naval Academy graduate, told Fox News Digital he organized the event as a symbolic protest of the president’s order.
Fox Digital reported Wolff stated:
The president does not get to say what the law is; that is solely the province of the judiciary. He must be reminded that his political enemies are not military enemies and that he cannot stop free speech, expression and democracy. Many of us, including myself, signed the dotted line and agreed to fight for these ideals.
It’s not the first time Wolff has protested Trump, but he has done it solo.
In February, Wolff sat in a lawn chair outside the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Legal Center and School, a training school for U.S. military lawyers, with signs protesting the president’s proposal to take over Gaza, accompanied by a sign that read, “GAZA RESETTLEMENT=WAR CRIME.”
An administrator threatened Wolff with expulsion for breaking campus rules on demonstrations, the libertarian magazine Reason reported at the time, but nothing came of the threat after it was determined he hadn’t violated any rules.
The tailgate flyer also offers a “special invite to US Army Jags.”
University of Virginia Law School officials said the organization Wolff is promoting is not an official student group and no approval was granted for the demonstration.
“‘Friends Against Fascism’ is not an official student organization at UVA or the UVA School of Law, and we have not received any request nor granted approval for an event of this nature,” a UVA spokesperson said in a statement. “University officials are looking into the post to determine its legitimacy.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more
Read the full article here