The Texas A&M Chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas is a group of the most conservatives students on the most conservative college campus in the nation. However, the YCT contends that Texas A&M is not as conservative as it is portrayed. The mission of the YCT, as articulated by the Chairman, is to "turn a passive, silent, oblivious majority of conservatives into an active, vocal, aware majority" and to "defend and revive conservatism among the American people...before we lose what has made Texas and this country great and blessed." So how exactly are they going to accomplish their mission? By fighting "liberalism wherever it may be."
A new tool being used by conservative activist is CampusReform.org, which was created by The Leadership Institute, a Virginia based training organization for potential conservative political leaders. The Leadership Instituted, which labels itself as a "a non-partisan educational organization," includes such notable "non-partisan" alumni as Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, President of Americans for Tax Reform Grover Norquist, and the "non-partisan" Karl Rove.
As Campus Progress reported, the Leadership Instituted launched a social networking site CampusReform.org so students can report and organize against professors that they view as politically biased. One of the main features of the site is the ability of students to rate professors anonymously, using a scale ranging from liberal to conservative.
There where five faculty members of Texas A&M University that where listed: Antoin Schwab, Ben Harper, Kimberly Brown, Tanya Weathers, and Terence Lamb. Besides being labeled as liberals they all have one thing else in common: all of them are African-American. According to the Office of Diversity, of 2609 faculty members at Texas A&M 93 are African-American (3.5%). The probably of choosing five African American faculty at random is 5x10^-6%, or one in 19,000,000. This gives the perception of racism because it insinuates that African-American professors are "not like the real A&M", and "not like us".
The Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT) Texas A&M University Chapter garnered some unfortunate publicity yesterday, and it was the politics of the lowest common denominator that can be expected from the YCT.
The Anti-Obama "carnival" took place on the Texas A&M campus in Rudder Plaza, and according to the KBTX report the YCT "encouraged students to throw eggs at a large picture of Barack Obama during a campus demonstration. It was part of what the group called an "anti-Obama carnival. Conservatives said the egg toss was symbolic of Obama's economic policies."
In an interview with KBTX Jay Cunningham, the Executive Director of the YCT, characterized the event as a "great success." Cunningham also said that YCT wanted to bring up issues that they believe Obama supports such as "redistribution of wealth."
Texas A&M University released the following statement:
A university campus is a marketplace of ideas. While we found today's activity offensive and not representative of Texas A&M's core values, we certainly respect the free speech of students on our campus. We are of the opinion that there are more appropriate and constructive ways to engage in a dialogue in advance of the upcoming elections.
This is video of the debate between the UT Austin Chapter of Campaign to End the Death Penalty and Young Conservatives of Texas on January 29.
The debate was in the Oxford style, with alternating speakers from each side debating a resolution that the death penalty be abolished. Each side also had a "questioner" who asked one or two questions from the other side, designed to point to the weaknesses in the opposing side's argument. In the middle of the debate, there was a short break in which audience members made comments and asked questions.
The yays won 114 to 43 on the resolution to Abolish the Death Penalty!
Duration: 75 minutes
