Former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke will speak at Dillard University on Nov. 2.
Duke reportedly garnered enough support for his Senate campaign in Louisiana to be included in a televised debate, MIC reports.
Duke has polled high enough to qualify for the debate with front runners John Kennedy (Republican) and Foster Campbell (Democrat).
Duke, who made waves early in the presidential race over his support for Donald Trump, cannot be banned due to the university’s contractual obligation to keep the event scheduled. The university says it agreed to host the debate before Duke qualified to participate.
Upon hearing the news, Dillard Student Leader Joseph Caldwell said that students are planning to respond to the internationally known racist’s appearance on campus.
“David Duke is unacceptable and he’s not welcome here,” the 20-year-old sophomore and vice president of the school’s Student Government Association said. “We are going to look at that as a student body and we’re probably going to do something about it.”
According to university spokesman David Grubb, Dillard’s president and the board of trustees learned WVUE-TV had invited Duke to participate in the event Thursday. Officials are in ongoing conversations about Duke’s appearance, but pulling out of the event has not been part of the discussions, Grubb said.
“It was a shock to us, just like it was to anyone else,” Grubb said.
Meanwhile Duke appears to be excited about the debate.
“Important news!” the 66-year-old tweeted last week. “I qualified for the U.S. Senate most important debate in Louisiana on Nov. 2. I can’t wait to tell truth nobody else dares!”
Duke has a history of losing political races. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations in 1988 and 1992, and has failed in runs for the Louisiana state senate and governorship, U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. He was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1989, where he served until 1992.
Duke renounced him membership with the KKK in the 1970s, but is known for espousing anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic rhetoric since then.
