‘Universities are indoctrinating students by painting conservatives as evil,’ student says
A hypothetical used in a recent Residents Assistant training at the University of Tampa presented a conservative roommate and a Make America Great Again flag as something that might make a student feel “unsafe,” according to a picture of the training materials.
The image, obtained by Young America’s Foundation, asked RAs how they would handle it if a student complained about the scenario.
“You just returned from class and one of your residents asks to speak with you,” the training image states. “He states that he feels unsafe in his room and needs an immediate room change. He goes on to state that he feels unsafe and threatened because his roommate put up a ‘Make America Great Again’ flag in his room and that he is a member of YAF.”
YAF is a nationwide campus organization that trains, supports and educates high school and college students on liberty-minded and conservative principles. The group voiced frustration with the presentation.
“Why is it that YAF students are deemed a threatening presence instead of pro-Hamas radicals who violently call for the murder of Jews and elimination of Israel,” YAF stated on its website.
Its spokesman Spencer Brown, in a news release, also called the incident an example of “demonizing” conservative students and the training “wildly biased.”
Slide from the University of Tampa RA training on how to handle a resident who “feels unsafe and threatened because his roommate put up a ‘Make America Great Again’ flag in the room and…is a member of YAF.” pic.twitter.com/OdB3ZxcVKR
— Spencer Brown (@itsSpencerBrown) August 16, 2024
University of Tampa YAF student chair Nicole Gillis also weighed in on the incident.
“This is the unfortunate state of higher education in America right now,” she said in the news release. “Universities are indoctrinating students by painting conservatives as evil.”
“This seemingly small example in an RA training at UT implies that they think that conservatives are dangerous and that students should be afraid of people with conservative ideas.”
The incident at the University of Tampa is not the first time RA trainings have shown bias against conservatives.
Earlier this year a social justice training for RAs hosted at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill advised against using words such as “husband” and “wife” and the titles Mr. and Ms., as well as to make sure and ask for and use preferred pronouns.
And as The College Fix also previously reported, a white supremacy pyramid graphic used at a training seminar for Reed College housing assistants in 2019 stated the term “Make America Great Again” is covert white supremacy.
At Clemson University in 2017, RAs were forced to display a commitment to social justice.
MORE: Trigger warnings, ‘Brave Spaces,’ social justice commitment: Inside a RA training
IMAGE: Fadziel Nor / Shutterstock
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