A Campus Divided

Speaker for TPUSA Rob Smith talking to students while others record the interview. Photo by: Delilah Alvarado

Students get pulled aside in front of a camera on the quad. An organization talks to students, trying to understand a partisan issue that arose on campus.  

Texas State student government voted on removing an organization from campus that has been accused of corruption in student government, spreading threatening messages and influence in degree programs. However, after a student government vote to remove the organization with a legislation piece called The Student and Faculty Safety Resolution, the student government redacted their decision Thursday, three days after the vote.  

What started out as an investigation of corrupt student politics turned into a partisan debate on freedom of speech. The call to remove Turning Point USA came after an investigation that lasted a year and a half gathering proof of the organization’s misconduct. TPUSA rejected the accusations and put its story on Twitter bringing national attention and a visit from member Rob Smith, a national speaker of TPSUA to campus.  

“I mean, my personal thoughts about from what I know of the student government sort of trying to shut down the organization,” Smith said. “I think it’s an affront of free speech. Now, I don’t know, a lot. I’ve been hearing a lot of things. But for me looking at it overall, it seems like there were some students who didn’t agree with the policies and organization that were trying to shut it down.” 

The research into the legislation started with the 2018 Student President Brooklyn Boreing being accused of taking under the table campaign donations. She was tried and found not guilty, but there were still suspicions about TPUSA’s involvement.  

“Claudia Gasponi, one of the co-authors of the legislation, spent a lot of time researching and making sure the argument was well thought out,” said Alexa Browning, director of government affairs. “The piece was inspired by student government election corruption and also countless students and professors speaking out about how that particular organization harassed them.”

Stormi Rodriguez, chapter president and campus coordinator for TPUSA says that despite asking for information on who is involved in these crimes, names have not been given to her. She says she thinks the far-left group ANTIFA is used as a source of information. However, student government chose not to include any names of former executive alliances who were suspected of involvement in their final draft.  

“It just was not a well-researched piece,” Rodriguez said. “And I think that everything in it is just unsupported claims that can be easily dismissed because of no evidence. And also, just put the counter evidence for my own members who said this has never happened.” 

There have been numerous accusations of corruption with TPUSA all over the nation before Texas State touched on them. One example of overusing their power is their website called the Professor Watchlist which lists professors that “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda,” according to the website.  

“TPUSA as a whole is an organization that siphons millions of dollars into universities across the country with the sole purpose of putting conservative students into office,” student senator-at-large Monica Mendez said. “As long as TPUSA has a chapter here, they will always have a gateway into the university.”  

On Wednesday before the redaction of the piece, Smith filmed students giving their opinions on freedom of speech and how they felt about banning the organization, while not knowing the full details of the legislation himself. Twitter was also filled with other right-wing organizations standing by TPUSA. Comments were even made regarding the situation from Charlie Kirk, founder and president of TPUSA, and Gov. Greg Abbot. Mendez says that she feels things escalate too quickly in these situations.  

“The hardest part of this is seeing ordinary students get caught in the crossfire of this,” Mendez said. “I’d bet that 90% of students don’t even know about any of this, since it has all pretty much gone down on social media. I just hope that people remember the human side of all of this.”

More on the story or about the organization can be found at https://star.txstate.edu,  https://www.chronicle.com/article/Inside-a-Stealth-Plan-for/240008 and https://www.tpusa.com.