High School Students Targeted by Leftist Alumni

Students working to start a Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter at Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School (MICDS) are under fire after documenting their struggles to promote conservative ideas on campus. Earlier this month, an MICDS student named Rose wrote an articulate and respectful letter to her principal, outlining numerous different examples of times where conservative students felt uncomfortable expressing their beliefs. One key example Rose supplied was that not one member of the faculty would agree to sponsor the newly-formed YAF chapter. “The bottom line,” Rose wrote, “is that we, as conservatives, feel that we go to a school that does not embrace the diversity of our beliefs; we are simply asking for fair treatment.” The letter was widely circulated around the MICDS community, eliciting a favorable reaction from Head of School Lisa Lyle who admitted they had “fallen short” and even published a response to the letter in an online video. Now, however, the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch is reporting that MICDS alumni have written multiple letters in opposition to the much-lauded efforts of these conservative student activists. One alumni bizarrely claimed Rose’s letter “reveals deeply entrenched privilege and a stunning lack of awareness of the significant systematic and systemic oppression actually marginalized groups consistently face.” The suggestion, of course, is that conservative students’ polite and respectful efforts to ask their school to become a friendlier place for discussion is ultimately rooted in “privilege” and constitutes a “stunning lack of awareness.” It’s beyond unfortunate that leftist members of MICDS’ alumni community have resorted to hyperbolically smearing the thoughtful and productive efforts of these brave conservative students who are only trying to make their school a better place. Young America’s Foundation congratulates the students for their courage and will do everything in its power to bring a successful YAF chapter to their school.