Just as free speech on college campuses draws attention at the Texas Capitol, Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is coming under fire at Texas State University.
A former lecturer at Texas State, Kelly Stone, has filed a grievance against the university and several administrators, accusing the university of fostering “discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, sex, religion, disability, veterans’ status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression” and “fostered a hostile environment through its actions in regard to Turning Point USA and other white supremacist groups that have been terrorizing the Texas State University campus and the San Marcos community since November of 2016.”
Stone’s grievance stems largely from incidents involving one student in the two classes she was teaching — one on sexuality across the lifespan and one on family policy — and how administrators handled the situation.
TPUSA Tactics
A redacted copy of Stone’s grievance states that the student in question “made disparaging remarks in the classroom and online, through course resources, about the LGBTQIA community as well as victims of sexual assault, and she disrupted multiple class meetings by laughing and talking over the instructor (Grievant) as well as over marginalized students while they were speaking. This behavior and these comments were both harassing and demeaning.
“This behavior was initiated on the first day of class, August 28, 2018 when, in the first 10 minutes of FCD 3350, [the student] held her hand high in the center front of the room while the instructor (Grievant) was speaking. This was not a question and answer portion of the Grievant’s usual classroom introduction speech, so Grievant was taken aback by [the student]’s question: ‘Are you a Christian?’ Grievant later recognized (and believes) that this questioning and behavior was calculated and executed in an effort to target ‘liberal professors in the classroom’ as outlined through the overt agenda of Turning Point USA.”
The grievance also states that Stone received “rude, insulting and demeaning” emails from the student and that although she tried several times to arrange a private meeting with the student, the student refused, at one point telling an administrator that she was “afraid ‘physically and emotionally’” to meet with Stone.
Stone said that she was told she would not be reinstated as a lecturer because her degree is “in another field” and she therefore is not qualified to teach in that department. Stone said in her grievance that she earned her undergraduate degree from the same department in 2000 and received a master’s degree in health education from the University of Texas at Austin in 2005, plus she has years of experience as a public speaker, advisor and has taught courses at George Mason University, Texas State’s Health and Human Performance and University College departments, among other qualifications.
“I know that I am not alone in being targeted and experiencing harassment as a faculty member, and I am speaking up, not only for myself, but for everyone else suffering from this attack on higher education,” Stone told the Daily Record. “When speech has the intent of causing harm and hurting others, the university has an obligation to protect the victims of that speech, not the perpetrators.
“It has been heart-wrenching for me to see how this culture of hate has infected my campus and my community and how it has hurt so many of my students, neighbors, and colleagues, and it’s time the university does something to actually stop it. Turning Point USA, its agents and affiliates should not be sanctioned by institutions to fulfill their efforts in attacking and hurting the folks these institutions are designed to uplift,” she continued. “I feel so sorry for the pain that my students suffered and that I was virtually incapable of protecting them from it. What is happening at Texas State and campuses across the U.S. is not OK.”
A Texas State spokesman said the university does not comment on personnel matters.
Student Actions
Less than a week after Stone filed her grievance, the Texas State University Student Senate heard a proposed bill that would bar Turning Point USA from the university’s campus. There is a chapter of Turning Point USA on campus; the organization’s founder, Charlie Kirk, and communications director, Candace Owens, spoke on campus last year. The national organization has a “Professor Watchlist” website where students are encouraged to report professors who “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” Two Texas State professors — Elizabeth Bishop and Rick Henderson — are on the list.
Numerous members of Turning Point USA were found to have made racist and homophobic posts on social media. The Southern Poverty Law Center has said the organization is boosting its numbers by reaching out to white nationalist groups. An article in the New Yorker magazine in December 2017 revealed that Turning Point USA might have crossed legal and ethical lines regarding student government elections and that the organization declared Texas State a “complete victory” in Its plan to take over student body presidencies at universities across the country.
The Daily Record reached out to a Turning Point USA spokesman about the Professor Watchlist but had not received a response by press time.
The legislation opposing Turning Point USA’s presence at Texas State also includes demands that the Texas State University administration and the Texas State University System “carefully craft policy to protect faculty from harassment, intimidation, or wrongful termination from third-party influence.”
Sen. Claudia Gasponi, one of the authors of the bill, said the student government will vote on the measure next Monday.
Legislative Measures
Meanwhile, in the 86th Legislature, a Senate bill focusing on free speech protections on college campuses has made its way out of the Senate Committee on State Affairs and is on its way to the House Higher Education Committee. SB 18, authored by Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston), “affirms that it is the policy of the State to protect expressive constitutional rights of individuals by recognizing freedom of speech and assembly as central to the mission of public institutions of higher education,” according to Huffman’s statement of intent.
SB 18 would require public institutions to adopt clear policies regarding students’ rights and responsibilities when it comes to free speech and “expressive activities.” The text of the bill states that higher education institutions “may not take action against a student organization or deny the organization any benefit generally available to other student organizations at the institution on the basis of a political, religious, philosophical, ideological, or academic viewpoint expressed by the organization or of any expressive activities of the organization.”
The bill also states that when considering whether to allow a speaker to speak on campus or when considering the fee for use of the institution’s facilities for free-speech purposes, an institution may only consider “content-neutral and viewpoint-neutral criteria” such as the expected audience size and any anticipated need for campus security. Institutions may not consider “any anticipated controversy related to the event.”
