Progressive lawmakers in Washington state are trying to get Washington State University to revoke all official recognition of the WSU College Republicans. Why? Because their former president isn’t on their Christmas card list.
“Workplace climate” standards are often loose enough that any disfavored or controversial person can be fired for speech or behavior that is conveniently interpreted as “harassment.”
These standards are exactly what a cabal of Democratic lawmakers in Washington state, including House Higher Education Committee Vice-Chair Gerry Pollet, wants to impose on registered student organizations at Washington State University.
In a poorly written letter to WSU President Kirk Schulz – whose name it twice misspells – a dozen state representatives and senators demanded the public university revoke its recognition of the College Republicans chapter.
They object to the fact that the chapter’s former leader James Allsup, a self-described paleoconservative, was invited to speak at the “Unite the Right” white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville last month.
He aired such views “as President of the WSU College Republicans Long [sic] before the Charlottesville Nazi rally,” and they were “given a sanctioned platform on campus,” the lawmakers wrote.
To be clear, Allsup resigned following Charlottesville.
I hope it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand how this can be a problem. After all, Allsup was president of the organization at one time, but he’s not anymore. He has no official leadership role in the organization at this time, but these lawmakers still want to punish the organization because Allsup used to be president?
Sure, we’ll play that game.
In that case, UC-Berkeley is going to be decertifying a whole lot of groups where key members have said hateful things about Republicans and conservatives in general, but that’s just for starters. Entire organizations are now responsible for every utterance made by their membership, both past and present. That means we can call for any politically motivated organization to lose recognition because their leadership was a hate monger.
And, to be clear, we’ll have a lot more grounds to call for revoking recognition of liberal groups than these progressive, crybaby lawmakers have regarding the Washington State University College Republicans.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, after all.
A note to these lawmakers: Never try to use a play you don’t want to be used on you. I know consistency is a problem for leftists, but if you decide that “hateful” speech by a group’s past leadership is grounds for removing official recognition for that group, then we can use that same reasoning. And considering the state of today’s college campuses, I suspect we could reduce most schools’ clubs down to the pottery club and a club sandwich.
So keep it up. You’re playing with fire, but we’ve got a flamethrower.
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