At Bethany College in West Virginia, students are given a written commitment that the university will uphold “free and unfettered discussion…which encourages expression of all points of view.”
Unless, of course, those views are conservative.
This month, students at Bethany College sought to form a Turning Point USA Chapter on their campus to spread the ideas of freedom, free markets, and limited government, while encouraging conversation among peers. The college, however, denied their application to form the chapter, citing TPUSA’s Professor Watchlist, which monitors professors who push radical ideology in the classroom, as a form of “harassment” and a history of TPUSA’s “affiliation” with “hate speech.”
Despite Bethany College’s supposed commitment to free speech on their campus, they were swift to deny these students their right with little to no support for their denial.
Conservative student and aspiring TPUSA chapter president, Seth Burgdolt, had this to say:
“As a Conservative student at Bethany College my voice has been blatantly suppressed. Every attempt I’ve made to start a TPUSA chapter on this campus has been shut down. The school has gone to great lengths to do so, even breaking their own policies. This campus is open to free thinking, as they say, but they have yet to accept any conservative values. My attempts to start a conservative club will not end because of the cowardly liberal leadership at Bethany College.”
Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) filed a letter to push back against the college on the students’ behalf, demanding that they approve of the application to charter a TPUSA chapter. In the letter, SLF reminded the college that contrary to its talking point, TPUSA “overwhelmingly” denounces hate speech. They also noted that harassment as defined by The U.S. Supreme Court can only be something “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive,” that it would make a professor unable to continue to teach. Professor Watchlist only features professors whose views have been publicly published in credible news stories. PWL is simply a resource that gathers those stories in one place so parents and students can learn more about the professors at their university or college. However in this instance, there isn’t even a professor from Bethany College on the watchlist!
If the ideas that Turning Point espouses are so unpopular & dangerous, why not allow them on campus—wouldn’t they be left to fail on their own accord due to disinterest? Of course, they know that’s not the case. It’s not so much that students are opposed to conservative ideas and values, it’s that they’ve never convincingly been exposed to them—thanks in large part to campus tyrants like the ones at Bethany College in West Virginia. The left hates the idea that there are other ideas. We can’t let that stop us in the fight for equal access to college campuses.
Time to ramp up the pressure and ensure conservatives are given a platform to shape the hearts & minds of the next generation of leaders. If you are an alumnus of Bethany and feel compelled to speak out against this blatant discrimination, contact school administrators. But if you want to hit them where it hurts, head to https://www.tpusa.com/divestu and let them know you won’t be financially supporting their dangerous intolerance any longer. This is a fight worth having, and it is a fight we must win for the sake of America.
