Well before the gathering in Charlottesville, Mr. McInnes had planned to hold a “Free Speech” rally in Boston on Saturday, but it remained unclear whether it would take place after civil rights groups on Monday asked the city’s mayor, Martin J. Walsh, to revoke the rally’s permit. Mr. McInnes, in an unusual move, said he hoped the event would be canceled.

“It’s a lose-lose situation,” he explained. “If we have a permit and we don’t go, it would show that antifa” — or anti-fascists — “can shut us down whenever they want. But if we do go, it will look like we’re fighting for Nazis we don’t like.”

On Monday night, officials at Texas A&M announced that they were canceling Mr. Wiginton’s event. But he pushed back, saying he would fight the university in court. “It seems like the First Amendment doesn’t apply to white people,” he said.