BUZZ
Someone didn’t appreciate the ‘Dump Your Socialist Boyfriend’ placard
The “unofficial” chapter of Wesleyan University’s Turning Point USA ended up exiting a campus student center following an encounter with a hostile crowd at which a TPUSA sign was stolen and tossed across the room.
According to The Wesleyan Argus, the TPUSA table at the Usdan University Center lasted only about an hour as an “unidentified” student snatched and threw a sign that read “Dump Your Socialist Boyfriend.”
Another student caught the sign and ran away with it.
Students in the crowd cheered when the sign was yanked and thrown, according to Hunter Young of the Leadership Institute, part of the TPUSA contingent.
The TPUSA table also had a sign reading “Be the Generation That Brings Family Back,” as well as buttons stating “Make America Healthy” and “Bring the Family Back.”
According to university regulations, neither Young nor TPUSA Regional Representative Anthony Romano were permitted to be in attendance at the TPUSA table as they were required to be officially registered prior to the event.
TPUSA’s Austin Bosch did not register Young and Romano, according to Wesleyan Dean of Students Rick Culliton.
Nevertheless, despite Wesleyan TPUSA’s status as “unofficial,” university rules do allow affiliated students to set up tables like the one at the Usdan Center.
Onlookers described one of the TPUSA members as becoming aggravated after the sign was stolen. As the commotion around the table grew, [Young and Romano] took out their phones and began to record students. The University does not permit independent or commercial filming on campus without approval.
A video, posted by Romano to X, showed students surrounding the table with one student saying, “We cannot let this happen, bro,” and another mockingly singing the AI-generated song “We Are Charlie Kirk.”
Heckling by students intensified, and other students attempted to grab the remaining posters. TPUSA members packed up and left at around 1:20 p.m.
Young noted use of his phone to film happenings was due to safety concerns.
LEFTIST HARASSMENT AGAINST CONSERVATIVES STRIKES AGAIN, NOW AT @wesleyan_u 🚨‼️
— Anthony Romano (@AnthonyRomano8) February 19, 2026
Today was our first time ever tabling on campus with their @TPUSA chapter and less than 10 minutes into tabling, a huge crowd grew with bad intentions towards our @tpusastudents
After leftist… pic.twitter.com/gnZl1TyBPY
“We are not looking to film people who we are in a discussion with. For us, the camera is to keep everyone safe. We began recording when students got hostile and we started to feel unsafe,” he said.
According to the report, Bosch and Wesleyan President Michael Roth have a meeting scheduled. Roth said “I don’t want [Bosch] to feel like he can’t bring people who agree with his point of view to campus. He has every right to do that, as far as I know.”
In an op-ed titled “Wesleyan Students Can Do Better. So Can TPUSA,” co-author of the Argus story Blake Fox writes “In this single incident, lasting approximately an hour, we got a microcosm of where our national discourse stands.
“One side struggled to listen to a perspective that opposes the prevailing campus orthodoxy. On the other side is a movement built on owning the libs, where provocation is valued over intellectual discourse.”
MORE: Wesleyan activists demand microaggression-reporting system, ‘mandatory social justice workshops’
