Santa Clara University students hoping to form a chapter of Turning Point USA were denied by their peers after claims the nonprofit organization stands against “humanity.”
Turning Point USA is a youth group that promotes limited government, free markets and fiscal responsibility on over 1,000 campuses nationwide. A chapter request by conservatives at Santa Clara University was rejected by a 16 to 10 vote on Feb. 2 due to unfounded claims TPUSA is linked to white supremacists.
Students told the Daily Caller on Monday that a PowerPoint presentation at the meeting attempted to link TPUSA to white nationalist groups.
“A lot of [critics] are lying about being afraid or they are genuinely in fear because of this false sense of danger promulgated by the media that anyone who is vaguely conservative is a Nazi or a white supremacist,” petitioner Caleb Aleva said.
“The order of the presentation goes like this: White Nationalists—>Alt-Right—>Identity Evropa—>Richard Spencer—>Milo Yiannopoulos—>Turning Point USA,” student senator David Warne added in an email.
Video provided to the website included a member of the school’s MultiCultural Center claiming that TPUSA was against the school’s Jesuit philosophy.
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“We just want to reiterate that this organization, nationally and here on this campus, is against our ideals as a university of Jesuit philosophy,” a student said. “And more than anything, it is against our humanity, and that is something every single senator needs to take into consideration when it comes to voting for these individuals, or this group. This is not right. This is not who [sic] we stand for as a whole university.”
Another student then asked for specifics as to how TPUSA was against the school’s Jesuit-inspired roots, but was not given an answer.
Mr. Warne added that a staffer later admitted that lumping in TPUSA into the PowerPoint on white nationalists was “inappropriate.”
The conservative students can reapply next quarter or take their grievance to the judicial branch of the student senate, the Daily Caller reported.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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