BUZZ
A new Turning Point USA group could make students “feel unsafe,” according to a pro-Palestinian activist at Dominican University.
Marwa Abdullah said her own activism plans faced problems getting approval from the Catholic university in the western suburb of Chicago. However, she has no problem trying to put up the same obstacles for a nascent TPUSA chapter.
Abdullah (pictured) said it took a lot of “work” to “get approval” “to protest the genocide of Palestine,” during a recent student government meeting.
“I kind of find the institutional response from the student body’s reaction to feeling unsafe or feeling unheard to be a little bleak, in the sense that there were a lot more regulations that I had to go through for my work, versus, well there’s just nothing we can do because [it’s] free speech,” Abdullah said, according to the Dominican Star.
She said further:
I think what the root of the problem is that when a harmful legacy exists, and says ‘that this is what we’re trying to do,’ against the backdrop of everything that’s been done by an organization, that is what causes students to feel unsafe, that is what causes students to feel unheard, and that is where the disruption becomes.
Others express concerns for the safety of illegal immigrant students on campus.
“I’m concerned about students’ safety, I’m concerned about my professor’s safety, and I’m really concerned with the fact that this could put a target on undocumented students’ backs,” Leah Knobbe, a student, said at the meeting. “I’m really worried about my fellow students, about my fellow professors, and I would like somebody to be able to advocate for me.”
Sometimes TPUSA “brings in those booths to debate students,” she said, in likely reference to the popular “Prove Me Wrong” events. “I’m concerned about potential violence happening on campus because of that.”
Students also wanted to impeach Michael Greco, the vice president of the Student Government Association, for supporting a TPUSA chapter.
Other Turning Point USA groups have faced pushback on college campuses in recent months.
Monroe Community College students faced an initial 8-3 vote against their approval. However, an administrator at the Michigan college intervened to approve the group, as recently reported by The Fix.
Police arrested a University of Iowa student named Justin Calhoon after the student flipped the TPUSA’s group table full of hot chocolate, The Fix reported.
MORE: UMD student gov’t passes resolution banning Israeli soldiers from speaking on campus
