The College Fix

‘Terrorism’ incidents include kid shooting BB gun at LGBT flag

The Trump administration has cut funding to a University of Maryland “terrorism” center that included peaceful pro-life students.

“It is with great disappointment that we report that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has notified us of its intent to terminate the Terrorism and Targeted Violence (T2V) in the United States project,” the University of Maryland project posted on its website.

The university’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START, previously came under criticism for a related database that appeared slanted against conservatives.

For example, it previously listed two students who were arrested for writing “Black Preborn Lives Matter” on the sidewalk in Aug. 2020, as first reported by The College Fix. The decision drew criticism from terrorism experts and the database removed the entry following College Fix reporting and a legal letter from Students for Life of America, who organized the event.

Hudson Crozier wrote that story and now is at The Daily Caller with a follow-up article.

The Daily Caller News Foundation “reviewed the database before [it] shut it down in March and found that it linked Trump’s near-assassination in Pennsylvania to ‘anti-immigration’ views, highlighted attacks on LGBTQ flags and left out examples of anti-Israel violence at universities.”

The Daily Caller reported further:

Searching “pride flag” in the database brought nine instances of people burning or damaging pride flags, hurting no one, with the label “premeditated hate crime.” START located state records and numerous media reports to document those cases, citations showed. Just one “pride flag” incident resulted in someone’s death because an assailant allegedly shot a store owner for displaying the flag.

One incident involved a “juvenile assailant” in Oregon who allegedly shot a BB gun at a pride flag in someone’s window. START’s methodology, however, required it to exclude “attacks on property that did not have the potential to destroy the functionality of the target or render it inoperable,” such as “breaking windows.”

“We are striving to make the database as comprehensive as possible using open-source information,” lead researcher Michael Jensen told The Daily Caller in March, prior to the defunding. He told the news outlet he would look into questions about missing incidents involving “anti-Israel militants.”

Analyst @ryanmauro told me START reflects the “major political echo chamber” among so-called extremism experts, who are now losing taxpayer dollars by the millions under Trump.

Read my exclusive report for the @DailyCaller News Foundation about this little-known but highly…

— Hudson Crozier (@Hudson_Crozier) April 24, 2025

Students for Life of America’s President Kristan Hawkins provided fresh criticism of the database to The Daily Caller.

“Pretending that you’re a ‘terrorist tracker’ or some kind of champion for democracy while putting a target on fellow citizens represents a whole new level of hypocrisy and social violence,” Hawkins said.

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IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: President Donald Trump smiles; White House/X

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