Hello,
I would like to submit this letter to the editor in response to the TPUSA legislation. It is a sad reflection on the state of free speech on our college campuses when groups like College Democrats and the Student Government are trying to remove a conservative student group from campus instead of engaging with them in a debate. Ironically, because the national Turning Point USA has a searchable database that catalogs publicly available information on professors who did things like denying the Holocaust, joke about shooting students, and compared Trump to Hitler (how original!), the local student group is being discriminated against. As someone who has spent the better part of four years, including as a student, working to protect the free-speech rights of all students, this resolution is seriously troubling.
Today, we think it will just be the Turning Point USA chapter that is deemed hateful or unfit to be on campus, but who do you think they will come for next? I understand that for the student Senators there is a sense that this is the most important time in their life and that they are being thought leaders and warriors for justice, but I do believe there will be a day when they realize the errors of their ways. As a former staff member of Turning Point USA and current Director of Communications for Students for Life of America, I worry for who will be targeted next in these attacks on free-speech.
Sincerely,
Matt Lamb – Director of Communications Students for Life of America, Former Turning Point USA Heartland Regional Director, Manager of Professor Watchlist