Northwestern University students can finally form a Turning Point USA chapter after the administration backed down from its insistence that the free-market group was impermissibly “similar” to another campus group.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) interceded for the nascent group and secured a promise last month from the administration that the group’s application would be accepted.
Students seeking to start Turning Point chapters have previously tangled with university administrations and student governments. Some claimed it could be represented fairly by a different group, espoused a “hateful” message – or gave no reason for rejecting it.
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Its activists have even clashed with police who objected to its activism on campus.
In the case of Northwestern, the university said TPUSA’s mission (“fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government”) was too similar to the campus chapter of the American Enterprise Institute (“freedom, enterprise and opportunity”).
FIRE wrote to Northwestern President Morton Schapiro in May, informing him that the AEI chapter hosts “infrequent and narrowly focused events” and that it is under no obligation to “freely or accurately represent the voices” of TPUSA students.
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It’s also a stunningly hypocritical decision, given the many groups greenlit by the administration whose missions substantially overlap with each other:
College Feminists, Women In Leadership, International Gender Equality Movement, Northwestern Men Against Rape and Sexual Assault (women’s rights)
Amnesty International, Fight for Freedom, Northwestern University Community for Human Rights, Peace Project, UNICEF NU (international human rights).
Pura Playa (Engineers for a Sustainable World), Northwestern Energy Technology Group, Students for Ecological and Environmental Development, Real Food at Northwestern, Wild Roots (environmental activists)
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Northwestern is bound by its own promises to students to let them “form, join, and participate” in any group and exercise “the right of a citizen” on campus, FIRE told Schapiro, and he apparently got the message.
Hypeline, the media arm of TPUSA, said the Northwestern chapter has already recruited 50 to 75 students.
Read FIRE’s post and Hypeline‘s account.
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