By: Nick Baker
Last week, members of the University of North Carolina-Greensboro Student Government Association moved to indefinitely table a resolution that would have reaffirmed students’ right to freedom of speech and expression on campus.
Following a weeks-long battle along with calls to censor and ban the Young Americans for Freedom chapter at UNCG for posting a quote by Ben Shapiro, SGA Senator and YAF activist Tyler Holden was inspired to propose a resolution to reaffirm the right to freedom of speech and expression for all students.
He and his fellow YAF activists have faced threats and harassment from leftists on campus, including SGA’s Secretary of Community Affairs, Keiandrea Mills.
After finding out that Holden is a member of the YAF chapter, Mills wrote: “F**K YOU @Tyler Holden and anybody else in YAF !! Pea brain ass organization!! Tell your people to post that on they national article !!”
“This is why people get beat up. You can’t just say s**t like that !! They need to mind they business tf,” she added, referring to the Shapiro quote.
It’s always concerning when those who call themselves advocates of tolerance and diversity threaten and harass others simply for having a different point of view– but the irony is taken to a whole new level when the aggression comes from the very person whose role is supposed to be building community.
“The University of North Carolina at Greensboro should be a college campus where all students are welcome, and where viewpoints, opinions, and ideas can be heard. The harassment, targeting of, and discrimination against students for their affiliation with campus organizations of their choosing is absolutely unacceptable and must not be tolerated,” Holden outlined in the resolution.
An overwhelming majority of SGA members strongly disagreed with that sentiment:
“SGA is not the place for this to happen,” Senator Azariah Journey told Holden. “You are speaking about things that you just don’t understand, my friend.”
WOW: Members of UNCG's student government attack a conservative student for proposing a free speech resolution.
— YAF (@yaf) March 8, 2022
So much for being "inclusive." pic.twitter.com/493dtal7bK
It’s quite clear that precisely the opposite of that statement is true– Tyler and his fellow YAF activists at UNCG are fighting to uphold our nation’s most precious founding principle.
The tyrants-in-training of UNCG’s student government indefinitely tabled the resolution by a vote of 25-5. Holden fired back with a strong and articulate speech:
“The fact that we have allowed this to happen is a stain on the legacy of our Student Government Association. If a monolithic mindset with little diversity of thought is continued to enable certain individuals to use the name of the students as the vehicle through which to push for their own hedonistic agendas, then the SGA has ceased to exist as an organization, for the students, or by the students. It has become increasingly evident that your Student Government Association has ruined its credibility, forfeited its legitimacy, and completely and utterly lost its sole purpose of being the voice of the whole student body.”
“This whole situation tells me that our SGA doesn’t actually care about students’ voices. They only want to allow viewpoints that align with their own,” the chapter’s chair Negar Jadidi said in a statement to YAF.
The Left may try to silence, threaten, and intimidate students they disagree with– but courageous students like Tyler and his fellow YAF activists will never back down.
