UPDATED
North Carolina’s Wingate University is apparently so afraid of terrorists that it doesn’t want to hurt their feelings.
The historically Baptist private school yanked its funding for a Young Americans for Freedom chapter event featuring Nonie Darwish, an Egyptian human-rights activist and critic of “radical Islam,” on the grounds that YAF’s chalking for the event represented “hate.”
It also told organizers to erase their chalking since the defunded event would no longer be part of Wingate’s ongoing Lyceum Series.
The national YAF told The College Fix that it stepped in to cover the costs for tomorrow’s event, but its Wingate chapter is blasting the school as “cowardly” in a blog post:
In an email to Wingate Young Americans for Freedom, the club organizing the event, an administrator [Lyceum Series Coordinator Tela Witherspoon] explained that chalk advertisements for the lecture drawn by the chapter were of “extreme concern” to her.
The content of those advertisements? One simple question: “Why do Terrorists Hate America?”
The administrator continued, “Concerns have also come to my attention regarding ‘flyers’ that have been posted around campus and although I have not seen them personally, this in conjunction with the concern of a number of individuals that have reached out to me is yet again concerning.”
It’s not clear what offends the school, though on one poster Darwish is holding a sign that reads “I WILL NOT SUBMIT!” with Arabic writing below it.
We’ve reached out to Wingate for its side.
UPDATE: YAF says the administrator who interacted with the club is Tela Witherspoon, the program coordinator for the Lyceum Series. Witherspoon’s email returned an “out of office” notice.
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