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HAMMOND, In. – A professor who disrupted a Turning Point USA meeting allegedly used class time to organize her protest, The College Fix has learned.
The viral video shows a professor, identified by witnesses as Nicole Rousseau, entering the mid-November kickoff meeting of a new TPUSA club at Purdue University Northwest. She begins to complain about “fascism” and says the center-right group wants to control what people are allowed to say.
“You have a situation here where you want to go into classrooms and you want to tell faculty that they’re not allowed to speak the truth about the history of this country,” Rousseau said.
However, this was no spontaneous protest by a single professor.
“She was strategizing on how to interrupt our group…in her class time,” Vice President Hailey Vanderhye told The Fix during an in-person interview. The group learned of this via a student in Rousseau’s class. The sociology professor also brought a group of students with her to protest the organizational meeting.
The professor also reportedly called Turning Point USA a terrorist group. She wanted to “take down Turning Point and remove us from campus,” President Abby Najacht told The Fix during an on-campus interview Dec. 10.
Rousseau initially ignored the group’s advisor who tried to deescalate the situation when she first entered. Only after the advisor brought in an administrator did she leave.
The sociology professor did not respond to two emails and a voicemail in the past week that asked for comment on the situation. The Fix also asked her to address allegations she used class time to disrupt the meeting.
Her background is in critical race theory, “historical womanist theory,” and “feminist theory,” according to her curriculum vitae.
She has a history of using her faculty position to try to shut down the free speech rights of other groups. “Served as faculty advisor of student-led protest,” the professor lists on her curriculum vitae. “George Mason University student sit-in protesting anti-gay rhetoric in campus newspaper.”
She has also previously lectured to the board of directors for Planned Parenthood in Northeast Ohio.
Listed media rep Kale Wilk did not respond to an emailed request for comment Friday on what the school has done to address the situation, if the university encourages or discourages professors from using class time to organize disruptions of student organizations, and for any additional context. The Fix followed up with an email and voicemail on Monday, but Wilk has yet to respond.
The school previously criticized the disruption.
“PNW is disturbed to learn that an individual seemed to interrupt for 2 mins an organizational mtg of the newly formed TPUSA student chapter,” the university wrote Nov. 17 on X. “PNW is committed to freedom of expression, which guards against disrupting the speech rights of others, and is investigating this incident.”
A national free speech group provided further commentary on the controversy.
“Generally speaking, when hecklers disrupt a planned event on campus, they don’t just trample on a speaker’s right to share their message; they also violate the rights of everyone who came to hear it,” Charlotte Arneson, told The Fix via email. She is a counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
“To be clear, not all protest crosses that line,” Arneson said. “Protesters peacefully holding signs or briefly expressing dissent typically do not prevent an event from moving forward.”
“However, when protesters shout down a speaker or otherwise interfere such that a program cannot continue as planned, the school has a duty to intervene and stop mob censorship,” she said.
Arneson provided further guidance on how universities can deal with disruptions.
“Would-be disruptors need to know that the institution will not tolerate a heckler’s veto and that students’ expressive rights will be protected, not sacrificed to the loudest voices in the room,” Arneson said.
TPUSA sees success after viral incident
The viral video and disruption appears to have backfired, as the group has grown in popularity on campus and in the broader community, TPUSA leaders told The Fix.
“I think we had maybe 60 followers on Instagram,” before the meeting, Treasurer Mikaela Martinez told The Fix during an on-campus interview. Now the page is up to almost 300 followers.
“We want to have a lot of speakers and lots of events and tabling events,” Najacht, the president, said. “So we’re really excited. We’re planning a lot and we plan to be a very active group on campus.”
TPUSA is “feeling stronger than ever,” and not discouraged, Vanderhye, the vice president, said.
All three group leaders said they would be open to having a further discussion with Professor Nicole Rousseau. “I think all of us would be very willing…to sit down and talk in a reasonable, polite manner,” Martinez, the treasurer, told The Fix.
The leaders were not optimistic it could happen, though.
“The way she talked to us at the meeting was so inappropriate and disrespectful,” Najacht said.
Editor’s note: Arneson’s title has been corrected.
