Education

Student Government Thinks ‘I Love Capitalism’ Group Is ‘Hateful’

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Rob Shimshock Education Reporter
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A student senate rejected a conservative group’s efforts to open a chapter at a Mt. Vernon, Iowa, college, branding it “hateful, sexist, racist.”

Cornell College’s student senate denied its Turning Point USA group official recognition — a status typically needed to obtain student-fees funds, rent campus buildings for free or at cheap prices, and take part in recruitment events, The College Fix reported.

“Concerns regarding this potential student organization outweighed the group’ potential contributions to campus,” Student Senate President Ethan Berube said. “These concerns were highlighted by the conflict between the values and policies of Cornell College and the actions of Turning Point USA leaders, members, sponsored speakers or programs that included: hateful, sexist, racist or otherwise demeaning or discriminatory messages; and, slandering college employees and attempting to restrict free speech through the Professor Watchlist.”

Turning Point’s professor watchlist entails faculty who allegedly “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda.”

The student senate also cited TPUSA’s invitation of conservative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos to campuses and the group’s “affirmative action bake sales,” parodying progressive-victim hierarchies, in its decision to deny the group recognition. (RELATED: Investigator: Student’s Bake Sale Mocking Progressives Did Not Violate Federal Law)

“We followed the whole process,” TPUSA Cornell College organizer Adam Tvedt said to The Fix. “We met all of their requirements; we went to the student senate meetings; we were questioned over and over and over.”

The student senate voted 14-5 to reject the chapter. The political body suggested the students interested in opening the chapter instead join the College Republicans club on campus.

“It is every Cornell student’s right to know what happens at Student Senate Meetings,” student senate, academic affairs Chair Ben Garcia said when discussing the publication in “hyper-conservative news sites” of stories about other student governments rejecting TPUSA chapters. “But I do not think that there is any right for outside individuals to know what happens,” Garcia added.

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“We are extremely disappointed that yet another American university has demonstrated their disdain for ideological diversity with their baseless rejection of the Cornell chapter of Turning Point USA,” TPUSA spokesman Jake Hoffman said to The Daily Caller News Foundation. “It is deeply concerning that student government bodies like the Cornell student senate willfully choose to discriminate against conservative groups seeking to promote the principles of free speech, free market capitalism and free people.”

TheDCNF reached out to Cornell College for their opinions on the student senate’s decision but received no comment in time for press.

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