North Texas Daily

By Cierra Edmonson and Kyle Martin

A man started a verbal dispute with students Tuesday afternoon outside the Business Leadership Building when he brought a Confederate flag to speak about his personal beliefs.

Hank Yoo, 23, is not a UNT student and UNT police said he didn’t do anything wrong despite flaring the tempers of students who stopped by to debate with him.

Yoo told students his intention were to rile up “as many liberals as possible.”

“He’s just exercising his First Amendment rights, that’s pretty much it,” police detective Shawn Keohen said. “And so is everybody else.”

The officer said Yoo was using his freedom of speech to speak as he wanted. The officer said that nothing violent happened during the time of protest.

“I’m proud to be prejudiced. I was made in America,” Yoo said, standing on a stone bench, addressing onlookers.

Yoo appears to have YouTube channel, “Lone Star To Arms.” In one video, Yoo delivers a rant about Black Lives Matter, an activist group which calls for justice and freedom of black people.

Yoo, who was reluctant to give his full name for “personal” protection reasons, said he was on campus Tuesday as a First Amendment activist, not as a Confederate rights activist, though he did label himself a “neo-confederate.”

“They’re trying to ban freedom of speech, everywhere. UNT is the college I’m not banned from, actually,” Yoo said. “I’m all for drugs, guns, gay marriage–everything. As long as you’re not physically hurting someone else, you have a right to do whatever you want.”

Ethan Bissort, a kinesiology senior, said he had been on the scene for almost two hours arguing back and forth with Yoo.

“I want to be sure that nobody here is even remotely close to being persuaded by what he has to say,” Bissort said. “The things that he has to say are so extreme and so anachronistic and they don’t belong in today’s society.”

Yoo admitted to being banned from four different universities for his beliefs and for “disagreeing and calling a feminist professor a ‘fat fuck,'” he said.

Yoo also claims to be a Trump supporter, stating that, “Trump is a nationalist and will work for our American interests, above everyone else’s.”

Students were live tweeting the encounter with the hashtag, #RacistAsian, posting pictures and live videos during the confrontation.

For those who may heave missed the #RacistAsian on #UNT campus today … Here you go #starsandbars #meanGreen ??? pic.twitter.com/Na9APUWW19

— Will (@wkstars9) September 6, 2016

Yoo said he was carrying a concealed weapon on campus. In August, it became legal for licensed citizens to carry their weapons on public university campuses. He did not display his weapon. An officer at the scene scanned his I.D. and confirmed he was a licensed gun owner.

Chloe Rogger, an applied behavioral science freshman, was counter-protesting Yoo and his message. She said she was there debating Yoo for more than an hour and was apprehensive of his firearm that he was carrying with him.

“He told us that he had a gun, but didn’t tell us that he had a license to carry the gun, so we had to get the cops,” Rogger said. “I feel threatened, and I shouldn’t.”

Yoo’s outburst led several other groups of students to share their opinions and beliefs together, and had many in attendance engaging in conversation about what was happening around them.

“We have to take our country back,” Yoo said. “The only rule of government is to keep people from killing each other and securing our borders and invading other countries.”