TEMPE – More than 100 protesters gathered in the Arizona State University Nelson Fine Arts Center courtyard Wednesday demanding ASU bar Kyle Rittenhouse, though ASU officials say Rittenhouse isn’t enrolled and hasn’t applied for admission.
The group chanted “Killer Kyle off our campus!” as they were met with a crowd of Rittenhouse supporters of roughly equal size, who responded with the chant “Let’s go, Brandon,” a conservative rallying cry used as a stand-in for cursing at President Joe Biden.
Rittenhouse, 18, was acquitted last month in the killing of two people and the wounding of a third during Black Lives Matter protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020. During his trial, he said he was “studying nursing” online at ASU. He later said in an interview that he intends to enroll for in-person classes at the school.
“Allowing Kyle Rittenhouse on campus is going to let right-wingers, predominantly white men like the ones here, harass minority students and have their way on campus,“ Daniel Lopez, a protest organizer from the Students for Socialism group at Arizona State University, said. “Our event today showed that it was important to stand up for this, to stand up to these people as a tight-knit community.”
Students for Socialism at ASU demanded the university bar Rittenhouse, denounce him and redirect funds from ASU police to the multicultural center on campus.
Join us and rally against racist murderer Kyle Rittenhouse being permitted on our campus – Wednesday at 3:30 outside the Nelson Fine Arts Center on campus pic.twitter.com/4Hs3JxRqtY
— Students for Socialism ASU ? (@SFSASU) November 26, 2021
On Tuesday, an ASU spokesman would only say that Rittenhouse no longer is enrolled in the school’s online non-degree programs and, as of now, he has not applied for admission to a degree-seeking program.
Cronkite News reporter Simon Williams contributed to this story.