Lawrence University likes to boast that “diversity is our strength,” and that it strives to ensure that all members of its “community” feel “a sense of true belonging.”
All members but conservatives, it seems. Particularly the good freedom-loving folks from Turning Point USA.
The high-priced private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Appleton, Wisconsin, appears to on the verge of telling the 18 students trying to set up a Lawrence chapter that TPUSA need not apply.
‘A Difference of Opinion is Dangerous’
Zach Currier, a business major and president of a chapter yet to be recognized, told Wisconsin conservative talk show host Vicki McKenna the student-led Lawrence University Community Council is leaving it up to students to decide TPUSA’s fate. On a college campus crawling with liberals, that’s like asking Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar whether President Donald Trump should be impeached.
Currier said the council’s steering committee accepted a petition demanding a referendum on the free speech organization that slain conservative icon Charlie Kirk co-founded. The binding question, according to currier, seeks to smother the Lawrence chapter’s quest for recognition in the cradle. Students must vote by Monday on whether to ban the group’s presence on campus.
Currier isn’t holding his breath for a surprise victory. He said the episode stinks of discrimination.
“They’re beating on the door of that in us trying to just have a place on campus,” the conservative activist told McKenna on her Thursday show in Madison and Milwaukee. He said one of the students on the steering committee initiated the petition.
Some of the students, Currier said, claimed they would not feel safe with TPUSA on campus. That’s ironic, given the fact that Kirk was assassinated late last summer while speaking on a college campus. Currier said the claim is “ridiculous.”
“I’m the one who is receiving the threats,” he said. “My group members are receiving threats. I’ve gotten threats on my life.”
“From what I gathered, a difference of opinion is dangerous to their community,” he added.
Lawrence offers 160 recognized clubs and organizations, not a one of them right-leaning, Currier said. There’s the Committee on Diversity Affairs, the Lawrence University Queer Alliance, the Young Democratic Socialists of America, the LGBTQ+ Alliance House, and the Lawrence University Pagan Society, among a slew of left-wing organizations. But Turning Point USA appears to have little hope of being part of all that diversity and inclusion.
‘Being Offended is Much Easier’
The liberal arts institution has been down this road before.
In 2017, student government rejected recognition for a group called Students for Free Thought. The organization’s disqualifying event was its screening of Ted Balake’s documentary “Can We Take a Joke?” which takes a look at the dangers of the left’s outrage/cancel culture from the perspective of the comedian.
“The last few days have been painful ones for many members of our community, as they have also been for me,” wrote then-Lawrence University President Mark Burstein. “The event and its aftermath have left many students wondering whether the University cares about their safety.”
Safety? What was the threat?
Words.
The documentary includes interviews with free speech scholars, shining a spotlight on modern college campuses where students are scared senseless of anything resembling a different thought — other than the steady diet of leftist indoctrination they’ve been force-fed.
“Being offended is much easier than formulating a persuasive argument for your point of view, and in the upside-down modern college environment, parading your offendedness actually confers an air of enlightenment,” Balaker wrote in a column for the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.
It is not surprising that so many college professors posted abhorrent messages online about Kirk following his murder, many celebrating his violent death.
‘Respectful Outrage’
While Kirk’s group saw a surge in interest and membership after its founder’s death, the leftist crusade to lock Turning Point out of private college campuses appears to be picking up. St. John University’s student government blocked a TPUSA’s attempt to set up a chapter not long after Kirk’s assassination, according to National Review. The largest Roman Catholic school in the United States didn’t want anything to do with an organization devoted to faith and freedom.
Point Loma Nazarene University, a San Diego-based Christian school did the same, according to Campus Reform. The Associated Student Body Board of Directors refused to recognize the group. As did the student government for New Orleans’ Loyola University in late October.
“Ever since Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September students have moved to start TPUSA chapters at colleges across the nation. In many cases colleges students are being met with stiff opposition from administrators. Now this same situation is playing out at Lawrence University,” Jacob Turner, president of the TPUSA at Concordia University-Wisconsin, wrote Thursday in a post on X.
Lawrence University officials did not return The Federalist’s requests for comment Thursday evening.
Currier told McKenna that there are two things the public can do for the Lawrence students fighting for their organization’s existence on the Lawrence University campus: Pray for them, and send “respectful outrage emails” to the institution’s administrators to “open their eyes to what’s going on.”
