The United States District Court for the Northern District of New York struck a blow in Young America’s Foundation’s favor on Tuesday, denying the leadership of the State University of New York at Binghamton’s attempt to have YAF’s lawsuit against the university’s leaders dismissed. The Court ruled that YAF’s lawsuit against SUNY Binghamton’s senior administrators for violating the First Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, and other laws can proceed.
In November of 2019, a 200-person mob of leftist activists attacked the SUNY-Binghamton College Republicans while they were promoting a YAF lecture featuring Dr. Arthur Laffer. Neither the SUNY-Binghamton campus police nor the SUNY-Binghamton administrators took any actions to defend the young students from the mob or to hold any of the attackers accountable.
During Dr. Laffer’s lecture, the SUNY-Binghamton administration allowed leftist agitators from student groups and an off-campus radical organization into the hall to harass and shout down Dr. Laffer using a megaphone. Rather than restore order and defend Dr. Laffer’s constitutional right to speak, the SUNY-Binghamton police instead forced Dr. Laffer to leave the room and ended the event. SUNY-Binghamton pursued no charges against the leftists who harassed and disrupted the event, or the progressive students who were flagrantly violating university conduct policies. Instead, SUNY-Binghamton suspended the SUNY-Binghamton College Republicans’ club recognition.
This brazen bias against conservatives and violation of Constitutional protections occurred amidst SUNY-Binghamton’s ongoing refusal to allow students to form a Young Americans for Freedom chapter on campus.
“YAF is pleased that the university’s shameless attempt to toss out this First Amendment lawsuit failed,” said YAF Spokeswoman Kara Zupkus. “As conservative students increasingly find their free speech rights under attack across the nation, it is the duty of college administrators to protect them––especially speech that’s deemed ‘unpopular’ by liberals on campus. The censorship enabled and enacted by SUNY-Binghamton’s administrators is blatantly unconstitutional, and we look forward to remedying these abuses through the court.”
