After the Young Conservatives of Texas at the University of Texas hosted their “Affirmative Action Bake Sale” last week to protest the school’s race-based admissions policies, many of the university’s left-wing students and employees have been aggressively advocating for UT to ban the organization and punish its members for their speech.
The movement has garnered over 800 signatures online and now the Student Government Association is considering joining the effort as well with legislation boldly declaring “UT must take punitive action against YCT to prevent future incidents from occurring in the form of disbanding the organization from campus.”
Today, YCT-UT Chairman Vidal Castañeda informed UT President Gregory Fenves that such actions would have serious consequences.
“If any punitive action is taken against the Young Conservatives of Texas chapter at The University of Texas at Austin [YCT-UT] or our members on account of their speech, we will take legal action against the University and all persons involved for deprivation of civil rights,” said Castañeda in a letter. “Any policies adopted or embraced by the university that infringe upon those rights will be fought in court, in the legislature, and on campus.”
Though the prospect of punishing students for engaging in free speech seems astounding, one doesn’t have to leave the Lone Star State to find instances of such unconstitutional harassment.
Earlier this year, a student at the University of Houston was sanctioned by the campus’ student government and stripped of a scholarship stipend for posting “All Lives Matter” on Facebook.
Texas’ public universities are run amok, with leftists administrations using tax dollars to indoctrinate students and stifle dissent. The university boards of regents and the legislature, which are universally run by people claiming to be conservative Republicans, need to exercise control over rogue state agencies.
Texans must not continue to tolerate bureaucrats who use the power of state government to violate our constitutionally-protected civil rights.
*** Update: After this article was posted a spokesman for the university issued a statement that neither YCT nor the students that participated in the bake sale would face repercussions over the event.
“The right to freely express views is vital to the health of our university even if some find that expression offensive or disrespectful. For this reason, UT will continue to protect students and student organizations in the exercise of their free speech rights,” UT spokesman J.B. Bird told The Dallas Morning News. “The ‘bake sale’ event last week was an example of the exercise of free speech. No students or organizations will be punished for that display.”
