The College Fix

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Video shows College Republicans’ display attacked at UC Santa Cruz 

College Republicans tabling at the University of California, Santa Cruz were accosted by passersby who ripped their signs, spit on their Betsy Ross flag, tussled with them physically, and yelled obscenities, according to video of the incident obtained by The College Fix.

The president of the UC Santa Cruz College Republicans, Dylan Temple, was also doxxed on social media with a false accusation that he attacked peers at the campus LGBTQ center, a move he said was done in retaliation for following the aggressors around until police arrived, he said in an interview with The Fix.

What’s more, the Feb. 7 incident happens to involve Hayden Williams, a conservative campus activist who was famously clocked in the face at UC Berkeley last year by someone triggered by his MAGA signage, another incident caught on camera. It made national headlines at the time and landed him on the same stage at CPAC with President Donald Trump, who lambasted how Republicans on college campuses across the nation are frequently attacked.

At UCSC, Williams was on campus to speak to the College Republicans and was helping them table earlier in the day. The video shows him refusing to allow one of the vandals to steal a “Trump 2020” flag, a tussle that ended with him being thrust into a bed of large rocks.

https://twitter.com/haydentwilliams/status/1227984673097371651?s=21

A UC Santa Cruz spokesman on Wednesday did not identify the aggressors in a statement to The College Fix.

“Campus officials are aware of an incident that occurred between students on the afternoon of Feb. 7, as members of the UC Santa Cruz College Republicans were tabling near the entrance to Quarry Plaza. UC Santa Cruz police are investigating, and hope to have the investigation completed soon,” campus spokesman Scott Hernandez-Jason said via email.

“UC Santa Cruz is committed to ensuring that all members of our campus community are able to exercise their constitutionally protected rights of free expression, speech, and assembly, and that they are able to do so in a safe environment. Free speech is uniquely important to a university, as it allows for the open exchange of ideas integral to our fundamental missions.”

The video shows the vandals appear to be triggered by the display, with one yelling the “Trump 2020” banner was a “flag of white supremacy” several times. After one of them spits on the Betsy Ross flag, a College Republican replies “get a life.”

Temple said the day had been going pretty smoothly prior to the incident, that they had conversations with a few “Bernie bros” and other productive talks with peers, but then the provokers came around.

“They really brutalized our stand,” Temple said, adding one of the banners they tore had cost $60 to print. “And after everything was said and done … I told them they were going to get expelled, they decided to leave. At that point I just started following them with my phone.”

Temple said the reason he followed them is because when his President Trump cut-out was vandalized last semester during another tabling event — and he got pictures of the perpetrators — campus police told him the photos were not enough evidence. This time, Temple said, he wanted to make sure he did not lose sight of the vandals so they could be held accountable.

To that end, Temple said he did enter the Cantú Queer Center in following the two, which is what ended up prompting him to be doxxed with the false claim that he “violently attacked” people at the center.

“The main thing is this is just pure defamation, I didn’t attack anyone at the Cantú Queer Center,” he told The Fix. “… They painted me as a right wing terrorist.”

The Cantú center director and campus police did not respond to a request from The College Fix on Wednesday seeking comment.

The doxxing has prompted Temple to fear for his safety, he said, noting some replies to the doxxing tweet called for him to be beat up. Temple said he plans to pursue justice, that the incident last week is just the latest in a string of attacks.

“We have had our table flipped before, we have had water thrown at our table, but this is the only time besides them destroying the Trump cut out that there’s been really monetary damage,” he said. “It’s intimidation.”

Williams, for his part, said the attack is par for the course.

“People just can’t help themselves,” he said, “they can’t let us be.”

UPDATE: This article has been updated to include a tweet with a video of the incident posted by Williams. Previously Twitter had blocked a separate tweet with video of the incident from his profile. 

MORE — Semester of violence: physical attacks on conservatives keep piling up

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