The student government at Texas State University voted on Monday to blacklist Turning Point USA from the school. The resolution listed several accusations about the conservative student group, while confusingly making the argument that free speech can only be protected on campus by silencing TPUSA.
Texas State University’s student government voted to ban the school’s Turning Point USA (TPUSA) student group in the name of free speech after a heated debate at a student government meeting on Monday evening. Members of the TPUSA student group were mocked and harassed by a jeering audience.
The resolution, entitled, “Faculty and Student Safety Resolution of 2019,” demands the “immediate removal and barring of Turning Point USA from Texas State University and suggest[ed] protecting minority and marginalized populations from their negative campus influence.”
An anti-TPUSA blog maintained by an individual named Maximillian Alvarez, who claims to be a “dual-PhD candidate and graduate student instructor in the departments of History and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan,” was cited several times in the resolution as a source of the student government’s claims about TPUSA.
“If you cannot use a source for a college paper, then you definitely shouldn’t be using it to ban an organization,” said Texas State University TPUSA chapter president Stormi Rodriguez to Breitbart News, “They used Antifa, and an anti-TPUSA blog as their sources for this resolution.”
“The University and Student Government hope to foster a learning environment in which one can learn without fear of discrimination, intimidation, or censorship,” states the resolution, which goes on to claim that TPUSA is an exception to free speech, insisting that the group “uses their placement on campus to harass, intimidate, threaten student and faculty as they see fit.”
Members of the audience mocked and shouted at Rodriguez as she stood at the podium to deliver her remarks during Monday’s student government meeting.
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“Fuck you!” shouted one individual from the audience after Rodriguez introduced herself as the chapter president of Texas State University’s TPUSA student group.
Then, chants of “No more harassment, no more hate, remove Turning Point from Texas State!” broke out among audience members, as the TPUSA chapter president continued delivering her remarks by questioning the “Antifa” source of the resolution.
At another point during the meeting, an individual can be heard shouting “race traitor!” at the school’s TPUSA vice president, who is black.
Students debated the issue at a student government meeting last week, in which one student senator argued that “the intention of this piece [to ban TPUSA] is not at all to infringe on anyone’s freedom of speech — it is actually in protection of freedom of speech — if you were in favor of free speech then you would be in favor of this piece [to ban TPUSA].”
TPUSA’s chapter president took a video of her experience as she exited Monday’s meeting after the student government had voted to blacklist her group. In the video, multiple students can be heard shouting variations of “Fuck you!” at Rodriguez, while others scorned and taunted her as she left the building.
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“We will not be silenced, and we will continue being active on this campus, because it is our constitutional right,” said Rodriguez, who said that she and other members of the school’s TPUSA club will continue being active on campus, despite student government’s vote to censor the student group.
Rodriguez added that she believes the student body president will now either sign or veto the resolution, and that if the president decides not to veto it, the resolution will then go to the Dean of Students for a final decision.
“Texas State better be very careful how they handle this injustice,” said TPUSA founder and executive director Charlie Kirk to Breitbart News, “The eyes of the nation are now on them.”
“If the administration allows the total disregard for free speech rights, they should have their funding pulled, as per President Trump’s executive order,” added Kirk, “I will do everything in my power to make sure they are held accountable for silencing our diverse student leaders from having opinions on free markets and the constitution.”
“Shame on Texas State, this will not go without consequences,” said Kirk.
Last week, Texas governor Greg Abbott reacted to the news of Texas State University’s student government proposing a resolution to ban the conservative student group from campus, tweeting, “The Texas Senate just passed a bill mandating free speech on college campuses (including conservative speech). I look forward to signing it into law.”
“But it’s crazy we have to pass a law to uphold the First Amendment,” added the governor.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo and on Instagram.
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