After a conservative student group hosted a presentation on illegal immigration, a Latino student group called them “offensive” and the Student Budget Board revoked their funding.
The Virginia Tech chapter of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) had invited Bay Buchanan, who worked under Ronald Reagan as the youngest U.S. Treasurer in history, to speak on immigration. They advertised his speech with fliers that read, “Alien Invasion: How Illegal Immigration is Hurting America.” Over 300 students attended.
“This combination of language and imagery is offensive, insensitive and a blatant act of disrespect towards the immigrant community and the Virginia Tech community at large,” said the Latino Association of Student Organizations (LASO.)
The Student Budget Board then revoke YAF’s funding for the next two semesters, and told them their event had “violated the principles of community.”
“It is ridiculous that the Student Budget Board has unanimously voted to rescind funding for the VT YAF Chapter just because of their conservative values,” YAF spokesperson Ashley Pratte told Red Alert in a statement. “We often see conservative suppression and this is one very clear example.”
Some professors also assigned their students to write pro-illegal immigration papers for class shortly after the event, according to Pratte.
University spokesman Mark Owczarski told Campus Reform that students had independently voted to pull YAF’s funding because they felt “deceived” by the group, which had been granted funding as a leadership program, rather than a policy-oriented program.
But Buchanan countered that her talk focused on leadership and communication skills when dealing with a controversial topic like immigration.
According to YAF’s account on their blog, the Budget Board told YAF’s chapter head they were curtailing her organization because “clubs like (hers) generally push buttons more than other organizations, given the nature of their mission.”
YAF has since had to cancel another event, tearing down a mock Berlin Wall, because the Budget Board demanded they obtain insurance against “flying” debris that might endanger students.
“How do we know that you will actually tear down a mock Berlin Wall and not focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict instead?” the Board head asked.
