A left-wing environmental advocacy group has obtained data for more than 30,000 students attending Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond through a simple public records request. The personal information included names, emails, and phone numbers of the VCU students.
The organization newly in possession of the contact information is NextGen America, a climate change advocacy nonprofit and political action committee, founded by billionaire hedge fund manager and progressive activist Tom Steyer. The group is preparing to elect politicians from the Democratic party “up and down the ticket” this year, according to their website. NextGen received the personal information of tens of thousands of VCU students through a request made under Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
NextGen refuses to confirm if the data has been used to contact university students. However, many VCU students have reported that they have received text messages from individuals claiming to be a part of NextGen with instructions on how to register to vote.
A Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates, Joseph Yost, shared his consternation with the university turning over personal information without permission of the students, calling it “shocking and frightening.”
“Students should not have to jump through hoops to protect their own personal and private information,” Yost expressed. “And that information should most certainly not be given freely to political groups seeking to exploit student’s personal information.”
The contact information of university students in Virginia is considered public, which is how the group was able to utilize FOIA for their interests. However, Virginia’s FOIA law does allow colleges to deny handing over student information.
NextGen requested the personal data from 39 publicly funded universities, with 18 of these colleges actually turning it over. Some of the colleges include Virginia Tech University, Radford University, as well as James Madison University.
The University of Virginia College Republicans stated they are “appalled by the recent invasions of student privacy by NextGen in order to further Democratic interest and support a partisan agenda in Ralph Northam.”
Ralph Northam is a Democrat politician running for Governor of Virginia this year.
According to NextGen’s website, the group works “politically to prevent climate disaster, promote prosperity, and protect the fundamental rights of every American.”
This isn’t the first time NextGen has tried to steer young people towards their political projects. Last year, the group went as far to use the trending Pokémon GO app to lure individuals into attending their group’s events held in Iowa.
Isaiah Denby is a college freshman from Tampa Bay, Florida studying economics and political science.
