LTE: TPUSA makes me worry for academic integrity in campus politics

Dear editor,

The internationally renowned and undeniably powerful youth-based conservative political organization known as Turning Point USA has made headlines for a myriad of reasons. As students, we are likely familiar with them as an organization or through those we know who are members. Whether it be collective activity or activity of the leaders of the movement, TPUSA has achieved the level of success that is observed perhaps most because of how the group advances their ideological and material interests through a systematic approach.

The target of their approaches toward college campuses is not limited to organizational activity outside student government, but TPUSA leaders, chiefly Charlie Kirk, boast about success in electing their members to student government. Now, this of course in itself warrants no problem — a free and fair election is generally ubiquitously encouraged and given authority over any transfer of power, no matter the scale. If anything ought to catch the attention of college students it is not uniquely the methods this conservative group utilizes, but what backdrop the methods fall against.

TPUSA has notoriously published a running list of hundreds of professors who are known to be liberal, and members are encouraged to investigate, mainly through enrolling in a professor’s course or by attending meetings of student organizations/clubs which the professor sponsors or may support, and report professors to this list. In essence, this is their registry of the “anti-American.” It is where “crazy radicals” can be exposed in the name of credibility.

Engaging in and perpetuating this “watchlist” is an affront to the values that institutions of higher education are founded on. Curricula design and the design of colleges and universities themselves are intended to produce critical thinking, diversity of thought and a better holistic lens through which to understand the nuances of the world.

The implication which one is left with is that members of TPUSA who indulge in this self-fetishizing reportage believe and promote the notion that non-conservative ideology, whether it be liberal or leftist, inhibits the professors quality of teaching, the validity of their credentials and the worth of a course itself.

Perhaps more important is the methods TPUSA uses to achieve its goals. The New Yorker published an original expository piece on TPUSA, exposing anti-Black rhetoric throughout campaigns by the organization’s leaders and illegal election funding to elect members on student government.

While college campuses have always been hubs of political discourse, perhaps the most famous instance of this notion in practice is the Port Huron Statement. Anyone disturbed by the concept of an organization’s condemnation of diversity of belief ought to read the Port Huron Statement written by the Students for a Democratic Society in 1962. This important work of student activism is considered a non-ideological call for sensible, honest, participatory democratic practices.   

This political work deserves a marked importance in the discussion of how political organizations ought to act on college campuses. TPUSA is often quick to characterize dissidents as snowflakes and anti-American, and yet the organization orchestrates the publishing of works of alienation toward professors who are likely far more prepared for any dialectical debate. It remains that the leading figures of TPUSA condemn the thought of leftist sentiments being taught in a classroom, while ignoring not only any merit of the deposed arguments, but more prominently, the importance of critical thinking in ideological development.

Not every member of TPUSA engages or assents to this behavior, and we ought to distinguish the group itself and its political interests from members who merely engage with the organizations principles in pursuit of an enlightened political understanding. However, an obvious refutation must be addressed: shouldn’t professors present material without bias? And if people see professors feeding students leftist ideology which lacks a dialectical nature, what should be done? This is difficult as there only exists vague litmus tests for what one considers liberal or leftist ideological points, many of which are contingent on an understanding of classic philosophy and 19th century political theory to adequately make these distinctions with academic integrity. One comfortable within these disciplines would not be so careless as to consolidate the nuances of contemporary politics into such a contentious, binary system, and I hold that, nearly unanimously, students in higher education are smart enough to determine bias from leftist/liberal/conservative views and divorce it from corroborated fact, without the political tool of a watchlist for contrary opinions. If this is taken to be true, TPUSA need not change its ideological foundations, but only review its responsibilities toward the students they seek to appeal to. Critical thinking is the cornerstone of political discussion, and if TPUSA wants to have a respectable voice in the discourse its members and nonmembers alike should compel the leaders of the group to divert its attention to inflammatory, directionless weaponization of political disagreement and adopt methods of outreach based in substantiated evidence of the merit of its own ideology.

-Tripp Wiggins