In a highly unusual move…
The San Jose Mercury News reports:
Santa Clara University reverses student vote, OKs conservative group
A conservative student organization scored a victory at Santa Clara University, where a vice provost overturned a student senate decision to deny official recognition to Turning Point USA.
In a highly unusual move, Vice Provost of Student Life Jeanne Rosenberger announced late Friday that the group — which espouses “fiscal responsibility, free markets and limited government” — qualifies for Registered Student Organization status. That makes the group the first chapter in Northern California to get such recognition.
“We feel really good about this,” said SCU student Caleb Alleva, who led the efforts to form the club. “They rejected us based on illogical reasoning, trying to lump us together with the national chapter’s interactions. You can’t base our actions off other people — you can’t deny someone because of something they might do.”
Other chapters of the group have caught flak from the left for bringing firebrand speaker Milo Yiannopoulos to campuses in other states. Yiannopoulos is a defender of the alt-right and a former Breitbart editor who resigned last month when a video surfaced of him light-heartedly condoning sexual relations with children as young as 13.
Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk often raises eyebrows on social media while bashing socialism and its adherents. In overturning the decision, Rosenberger disagreed with students who questioned the appropriateness of the group, saying “consistent with our treatment of other RSOs that have affiliated with a national organization, we will not hold TPUSA-SCU responsible for all actions and activities of the national office or other TPUSA chapters.”