Recent K-State student known for offensive George Floyd tweets attends Capitol riot
A recent Kansas State University student whose offensive tweets about George Floyd last year propelled the university into the national spotlight participated in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
Jaden McNeil was at the Capitol with America First podcaster Nick Fuentes, whose supporters include white nationalists and far-right provocateurs. McNeil founded a K-State chapter last year called America First Students.
McNeil retweeted a video Wednesday that showed him standing next to Fuentes in the throng outside the Capitol pumping his fist in the air and chanting, “America First!”
“They just tear gassed us at the Capital,” McNeil tweeted at 1:15 p.m. Wednesday. “BLM can burn, loot, and murder but we aren’t allowed to protest a stolen election.”
At 4:55 p.m., he tweeted: “The real police brutality is against American patriots not black thugs.”
McNeil did not indicate whether he was among the rioters who stormed the Capitol. A photo circulating on Twitter shows a man who some said was Fuentes inside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, but Fuentes later tweeted that the person was not him.
“This is fake news!” he tweeted. “I did not enter the Capitol building. I was outside on the lawn wearing a completely different outfit.”
McNeil, who was a junior in political science at K-State last year, could not be reached for comment and has not responded to requests for comment on previous stories. A K-State spokeswoman said Thursday that he was not enrolled in classes for the spring semester.
McNeil ignited an uproar at K-State in June when he tweeted about Floyd, the 46-year-old Black man killed in May under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis. The death sparked protests across the country and led to a national reckoning on systemic racism.
McNeil’s tweet — “Congratulations to George Floyd on being drug free for an entire month!” — elicited a flood of responses from across the country. Many supported his right to free speech, but most denounced the tweet. K-State students, alumni and others called for him to be expelled. And some K-State athletes said they refused to be involved in any athletic activities on campus until McNeil was gone.
Legal experts, however, said that a public university might not have the right to expel McNeil.
Ultimately, K-State President Richard Myers said that “while these messages are disrespectful and abhorrent, we cannot violate the law.”
Myers issued a list of action steps the university would take, including improving the process for receiving complaints of discrimination, developing a policy on social media usage for students, training for staff, and scholarships for minority students.
The K-State athletic department also announced that it would create a more diverse atmosphere and help its athletes combat racism.
The George Floyd tweet wasn’t McNeil’s first brush with controversy at K-State. Last February, a national watchdog organization issued a report about the formation of America First Students on the K-State campus in Manhattan.
The Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights said the group was created as part of an effort by white nationalists to repackage their bigotry through a mainstreaming strategy that focused on college campuses and Trump supporters. K-State officials said the group was not registered on campus because it did not have the minimum of five members.
McNeil denied he was a white nationalist. His group’s Twitter page describes America First Students as a conservative organization that stands for “strong borders, traditional families, the American worker, and Christian values.”
But two weeks after the report was issued, McNeil attended a gathering outside Washington, D.C., posing in pictures with well-known white nationalists.
