Student Government recently received a letter from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Student Body President, Vice President, and Chief of Staff. I am sharing it with the Student Body of Texas State because I would like to re-emphasize that the legislation Sen. Newman and I wrote is not at all about free speech, or taking the rights of students to speak or assemble. The legislation that we wrote and endured harassment for, that was passed in the Senate only to be vetoed by SBP Allison Castillo, is about the safety of our students, staff, and faculty. The framing of this legislation as “an attack on free speech” is a tool used by far-right conservative voices to distract from the real reason students, staff, and faculty across the country want Turning Point USA banned from their campus: TPUSA’s commitment to harassing students & faculty, their consistent corruption of student government electoral politics, and their connections to violent white supremacists.
There are several national and local news articles detailing TPUSA’s corruption on our campus but if you’re unfamiliar, I recommend looking it up and learning about this well documented national issue. The San Marcos Daily Record and The Chronicle of Higher Education have both recently published articles detailing some of the harassment our students and faculty endure at TPUSA’s hand.
I’d like to focus on the issue of TPUSA’s connection to violent white supremacists because I feel that hasn’t been fairly acknowledged by the Star, Eric Algoe, Gov. Abbott or Dr. Trauth. On Wednesday, April 10th, dangerous white supremists were sighted in San Marcos and on our campus, namely, Chris Ritchie, a well-known violent and unstable member of the far right, and members of the “Proud Boys,” another well-documented violent group. Proud Boys were also seen during the Student Government meeting where we voted on the Faculty and Student Safety Resolution of 2019. I can’t emphasize enough how scary that was for many students, especially those of us that spoke up against TPUSA. Their presence on our campus is directly tied to Turning Point USA’s social media. I should not have to explain why it is dangerous for violent white supremacists on our campus. Violent people who want to do genocide are very simply bad. Keeping Turning Point around when they refuse to distance themselves from violent racists is a very stupid and unsafe thing for Texas State to do.
