The College Republicans at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill will bring two leading conservative women to campus, despite efforts by the student government to quash their efforts.
After the UNC Student Congress denied the College Republicans the necessary funding to bring Katie Pavlich and Anne McElhinny to speak on campus, the group launched a crowdsourced Internet funding campaign. On Friday, the group announced that they had raised enough money to pay the speakers’ fees.
“We can confirm [Pavlich and McElhinny] are coming on the same night to stand in opposition to the student congress,” said Ben Smith, executive vice chairman of the College Republicans, in a statement to The College Fix. “We are excited.”
Pavlich and McElhinny — as well as the Young America’s Foundation — helped organize the Internet funding campaign.
The College Republicans had originally asked the student government for a funding allocation of $8,000 to bring the speakers to campus. But the finance committee decided to give them a mere $3,000–despite having $90,000 in the bank. Socialist and feminist groups received more money.
Conservative students appealed the decision to the full Student Government, which voted 21-1 to keep the group’s funding at $3,000. Multiple student government leaders expressed the view that Pavlich and McElhinny were “non-intellectual,” “unreliable” and unworthy of students’ time.
Now, it seems the Student Congress’s efforts to insulate campus from conservative viewpoints has backfired.