Administrators at Gettysburg College have revoked the school’s Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) club’s funding for conservative speaker Robert Spencer. Gettysburg YAF hoped to bring Spencer to campus to speak on the threat of radical islam and ISIS. Well in advance of the planned lecture, Gettysburg YAF went through all of the correct steps to receive approval and funding. After receiving overwhelming support from the Gettysburg College Student Senate, the body approved YAF’s request for funding on April 7th. Immediately after the vote, the school’s Director of Student Activities and Greek Life Joseph Gurreri and Dean of Students Julie Ramsey approached the two YAF members present at the student senate meeting. Without further explanation, YAFers were told that the club’s request to host Spencer would be subject to a lengthy investigation that would take half a year to complete. On April 10th, YAF chairman Scott Moore was able to obtain a meeting with Dean Ramsey. He confronted her with the fact that other student groups had not been subjected to these lengthy investigations. Ramseyadmitted to Moore that no policy existed that allowed her to unilaterally overturn the decision made by the Student Senate to approve and fund the lecture. She planned to do so anyways. Moore tells YAF “The Dean then admitted that the issue is primarily the “controversial” nature of potential YAF speakers. In response to a question about controversial speakers permitted in the past, such as Bill Ayers, a porn star, and several members of the Black Lives Matter movement (which has been enthusiastically endorsed by the College on multiple occasions), she falsely contended that college campuses have only become heavily political in the past year.” Dean Ramsey also cited the potential threat of protestors against Spencer as a reason to block the lecture from occurring. After weeks of school bureaucrats stalling to give Gettysburg YAF an answer about the status of their lecture, the chapter was told last night, three weeks after their funding was approved, that the administration is allowing Robert Spencer to speak but is pulling the funding granted to YAF to do so. With less than 2 weeks until the last day of classes, the YAF chapter is left empty-handed. The administration is clearly aware that it is nearly impossible for a student group plan a successful lecture, and fundraise an honorarium they were previously promised in such a short amount of time. Students at Gettysburg College should be appalled that the fascist administrators have overturned the decision that the student senate carefully considered and approved. The chapter is working to push back against this dictatorial behavior of Dean Ramsey and the administration, in order to bring conservative ideas to campus the student body has displayed an interest in hearing.
