YAF on Campus: Rick Santorum at Princeton University

Young America’s Foundation hit another Ivy League campus last night as Rick Santorum delivered an #OnlyAtYAF lecture at Princeton on the degradation of traditional American values. The room was jam packed, the line was out the door, the cameras were rolling for the livestream, but just as the event was about to start, bureaucracy attacked. Organizers of the event were approached by Thomas Dunne, deputy dean of undergraduate students, who demanded that a Young America’s Foundation backdrop, which is utilized at all lectures, be taken down because this was a “Princeton event.” Interesting. Young America’s Foundation paid 70% of the honorarium, Senator Santorum’s travel, promotional materials, a livestream production, and on-the-ground support. Sounds like a “Princeton event,” right? I was brought into the conversation as YAF’s representative on the ground, at which point the administrator began citing a slew of arbitrary rules that clubs could not bring in outside organizations to put on events, that all signage in the rooms had to be of Princeton University alone, and others. Young America’s Foundation hosts and assists students at hundreds of events every school year and we have never had this problem, but this Princeton bureaucrat would not let the event start until our backdrop was removed with nothing in writing to cite his decision. Following the event, I overheard the administrator, in speaking with another student, refer to Young America’s Foundation as a “disingenuous organization with an agenda” and assuming that our motives for hosting lectures on campuses were about the “self-promotional nature of an outside organization.” Look, if the Foundation had just found a random conservative event and mooched off it to claim it as its own, his comments would be valid. But I would remind him and all other administrators that Young America’s Foundation provides groups who want to bring speakers to campus with financial, logistical, and promotional support. The behavior we saw at Princeton from administrators is something we are accustomed to at Young America’s Foundation. They attempt to create road blocks and intimidate students attempting to bring conservatism to campus. Regardless of the bureaucratic obstacle courses, we have held successful lectures at Ivy League schools this year, such as Ben Shapiro at Yale, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich at Cornell, Dinesh D’Souza at Columbia, Steve Forbes at Penn, and Rick Santorum will follow this Princeton lecture speaking at Harvard next month. Whether these bureaucrats like it or not, conservatism is being heard on America’s bastions for liberal indoctrination and it is thanks to Young America’s Foundation standing up for and supporting students on these campuses. And we will not let a tantrum over our logo deter us from continuing to do so.