Hoax: Are ‘White Student Unions’ actually run by students?

“You don’t have to go there,” he wrote. “Make one for Dartmouth, Princeton, etc.”

By Sunday night, over 35 different groups had been created. Groups have formed at schools such as Ole Miss, Michigan State, and UCLA, among others.

Red Alert Politics interviewed the administrators for the Swarthmore College’s White Student Union group. Their Facebook page claims they “are a safe space welcoming to students of European descent.” The group said in no way, shape, or form were they connected to the Daily Stormer website. Despite the suspicious timing of Anglin’s article and the creation of their Facebook page, the group maintains separation.

The Swarthmore group was critical of the Daily Stormer, stating men like Anglin were the persons “people of color SHOULD be labeling as KKK.” They further clarified members of their group “don’t seek to dominate, but in the quest for equality, we must hold all races accountable when they upset the balance and attempt to monopolize the discussion.”

The interviewee said inspiration for the page came from a UC Berkley White Student Union Facebook page. That page has been deleted, but its short existence caused quite an uproar on Saturday. It is unclear if the page was created by an actual student or an outside source. According to UC Berkley’s school newspaper, Associate Chancellor and Dean of Students Joseph Greenwell is looking into the group for potential “violation of the use of the University brand.”

The Swarthmore College White Student Union has 20 men and more coming who want to “facilitate dialogue with the ethnic student groups without having to compromise our identity.”

While they aren’t approved by the school, the group is concerned about faculty and staff who might be removed due to “black student organizations” that “are becoming drunk with power and using that uninhibited power to humiliate and remove our fine presidents, administrators, and faculty.”

The anonymous Swarthmore College student who started this page said their UC Berkley counterpart has “genuine and respectful intentions.” However, information online including the following tweet sent on Friday afternoon, indicate that many of these white “student” groups are not run by actual students.

The Swarthmore White Student Union page also links to a website called American Renaissance, which is largely considered to be a white supremacist website as well. At press time, the Swarthmore group refused to release names of students involved in the club.

Update:

Alisa Giardinelli, the director of communications for Swarthmore, said that she thought it was unlikely that the website was created by a student, especially considering the size of the student population.

“We do not believe that this site was created by our students,” Giardinelli said via email. “For one thing, it has almost the exact same copy as the other 34 some sites, and the same design as well.

Giardinelli also questioned why a Swarthmore student would be unwilling to identify themselves.

“If they are going to become an official student organization on campus, they will be known shortly by everyone on our small campus so anonymity makes no sense,” she said. “Without verification, the student/s may be called ‘self-styled students,’ but in all likelihood they are not our students — just as is the case with all the similar sites.”