Despite claiming to defend free speech, Turning Point USA has stifled speech on nearly every college campus where they’re active in the United States.
Turning Point USA is a nonprofit organization with a mission to spread conservative ideas to college campuses. They have chapters at most colleges, including a chapter at SVSU, which has seemingly disappeared in the last two years.
One of the most important ideas the organization promotes is free speech. More specifically, they’ve expressed concern about supposed attacks on conservative thinking on college campuses. These concerns have been greatly heightened since the assassination of Turning Point USA’s leader, Charlie Kirk, in September.
Here at SVSU, free speech seemed to be the focal point of their activism. While they were active, every fall semester, SVSU’s Turning Point USA chapter would set out a giant inflatable ball and invite passers-by to write whatever they wanted on it, in the name of free speech.
Despite their apparent support for free speech, few organizations have worked harder to stifle it. In 2016, the organization released their “Professor Watchlist,” a website in which students could report their professors for ideological extremism.
Professors could be reported for a number of positions, including but not limited to: DEI, Racial Ideology, Covid-19, anti-Judeo-Christian values, climate alarmism, and simply, “LGBTQ.” Many of those tagged as “LGBTQ” are seemingly just tagged for their identity, and many transgender professors are deadnamed.
It’s difficult to see this list as anything other than an attempt at stifling the free speech of professors. Professors’ names and faces are listed as if in a criminal registry, and links invite users to share their information on social media. The consequences of being listed are routine harassment and threats.
One professor on the list has routinely received anonymous threats and calls for their death after being reposted for coverage of critical race theory in their classroom, according to a Daily Egyptian article. The harassment went beyond just the professor — the article states that their close family members were targeted as well.
This organization parrots cries for free speech while working to suffocate the speech of those they disagree with. Their goal is the same as many in the current federal administration: to shut down conversations about gender, sexuality, race, and even COVID-19 and climate science.
In the process, they are harming young conservatives by inviting them to reject being challenged. Instead, they are asked to respond with hostility. Why should any student learn and grow when they’re told that being presented with other perspectives is something their professors should be reported and harassed for?
Ultimately, Turning Point USA has succeeded both in chilling undesired speech in classrooms and teaching young conservatives not to engage in real discourse. In the process, they have taught left-leaning minds to fear them and right-leaning minds to fear alternative ideas.
In inviting young conservatives to respond to challenges with hostility, they have damaged the free speech they claim to defend, and thus, further divided the nation.
It’s important that students on both sides of the aisle recognize the harm that is done by rejecting and shutting down speech in classrooms. To that end, we should all get comfortable with the discomfort that truly free speech creates.
Riley Hurley 
Abdullah Farooqui