UF is protecting the snowflakes from opposing views
Via Miami Herald:
A conservative student group is suing the University of Florida in federal court, alleging the university’s process of disbursing student fees to fund non-budgeted organizations on campus has been marred by discrimination.
The Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter at UF, aided by Alliance Defending Freedom, sued the university’s Board of Trustees and its president on Dec. 21 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.
The student group has helped organize on-campus speaking engagements for conservative commentators inlcuding Ben Shapiro and Dinesh D’Souza. The 45-page legal complaint says the group had been discriminated against by UF’s Student Government when senators denied YAF’s request to become a fully budgeted student organization and subsequently passed a code revision barring non-budgeted groups from filing funding requests for speaker fees.
“Under this new policy, budgeted student organizations can advocate for their own viewpoints both directly and by bringing in guest speakers, but non-budgeted student organizations cannot obtain funding to similarly express themselves,” the complaint states.
After hosting D’Souza using student activity fees, YAF applied for $6,225 to host conservative commentators Dana Loesch and Andrew Klavan but were denied under the new policy, the lawsuit claims. The organization argues the policy change specifically targets their viewpoints because no other non-budgeted group has hosted a speaker at UF in recent years.
“UF officials are actively trying to stifle the University of Florida Young Americans for Freedom chapter on the basis of the students’ conservative beliefs,” said Young America’s Foundation spokesman Spencer Brown in a statement.
“This past year, the University of Florida denied UF YAF funding to host Dana Loesch and Andrew Klavan. That denial — and the timing of policy changes that, in function, only impact UF YAF — speaks loudly to the University of Florida’s true intention to prevent conservative ideas being heard on campus.”