For their determination to take a stand against the leftist policies of their student government and university, University of Notre Dame Young Americans for Freedom (ND YAF) has been named chapter of the month for October.
As Halloween was approaching, the sister school of Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College, sent out an all-school email admonishing anyone who dressed up as anything other than a member of their own ethnic background–effectively barring a majority of students from dressing up. University of Notre Dame YAF quickly convened to bring this lunacy to light.
The YAF chapter decided to carry out Young America’s Foundation’s “Funeral for Halloween” campus activism initiative to illustrate the hypocrisy in the Left’s politically correct antics. The school, however, took issue with the Funeral for Halloween and asked to meet with the leaders of the YAF chapter, where administrators pushed the YAF chapter to scrap their plans because the Funeral for Halloween would be too offensive. The members of the YAF chapter came prepared though, and pushed the school to provide them with a formal policy that would prevent ND YAF from holding a tabling event. Administrators conceded that the YAF chapter had every right to express their disagreement with the school’s attempt to censor Halloween.
Halloween is about “the character, not the culture,” University of Notre Dame YAF chairman Clare McKinney said of her chapter’s work to preserve the fun of Halloween. She organized the Funeral for Halloween to address both the stupidity of barring men and women from dressing up as their favorite Disney character or in another costume, and the undercurrent of political correctness on her campus. Clare saw how helicopter administrators’ warnings were just another way for her school to infantilize students. YAF’s Funeral for Halloween provided Clare and her chapter a platform to initiate a larger conversation on campus and illustrate how political correctness has run amok.
On October 31, ND YAF chapter successfully carried out the Funeral for Halloween and their bold activism brought crowds from around campus to join the YAF chapter in recognition of the Left’s attack on Halloween.
University of Notre Dame Young Americans for Freedom stood their ground against belligerent peers and helicopter administrators, increased the chapter’s profile on campus, and called attention to the festering movement to establish political correctness on campus. For this reason, we congratulate ND YAF on being selected as October’s Chapter of the Month.
