University Students Reject Conservative Group as 'Unsafe,' Against 'Humanity'

The Santa Clara University student Senate denied a petition to establish a chapter of the conservative nonprofit, Turning Point USA.

Opponents said the group would make them feel "unsafe" and claimed it stands against "humanity," according to reports.

"We just want to reiterate that this organization, nationally and here on this campus, is against our ideals as a university of Jesuit philosophy," one student said in a video, according to The Washington Times. 

"And more than anything, it is against our humanity, and that is something every single senator needs to take into consideration when it comes to voting for these individuals, or this group," the student continued.

"This is not right. This is not who (sic) we stand for as a whole university," the student said.

In addition, The Daily Caller reports that a full-time university employee showed the student senators a PowerPoint presentation that connected Turning Point USA with white supremacist organizations.

Turning Point USA is a national conservative student activist group that promotes "fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government," according to its website.

The Santa Clara student senate rejected the petitioners request to form a chapter at a meeting of the Associated Student Government February 2.

"They were saying they were in danger but they couldn't cite any facts," Caleb Alleva, one of the petitioners, told The Daily Caller.

"A lot of them are lying about being afraid or they are genuinely in fear because of this false sense of danger promulgated by the media that anyone who is vaguely conservative is a Nazi or a white supremacist," Alleva said.

When the student senate met January 26, The Daily Caller reports a university employee showed them a PowerPoint entitled "White Nationalist, Alt-Right & Other Groups on College Campuses."

David Warne, a student senator at Santa Clara, explained the PowerPoint to TheDC.

"The order of the presentation goes like this: White Nationalists—>Alt-Right—>Identity Evropa—>Richard Spencer—>Milo Yiannopoulos—>Turning Point USA," Warne wrote in an email, according to TheDC.

The news outlet reports that neither Identity Evropa, nor Spencer, nor Yiannopoulos are connected to Turning Point USA.

Warne went on to say that the employee who shared the PowerPoint "later regretted putting TPUSA in the same slide show, and admitted it was inappropriate."

A Turning Point USA spokesman told TheDC that the university's assistant director of student organizations told the group to re-apply next quarter.

"She also said that one reason the student senate likely rejected us was because of the 'mood' after the last election," spokesman Matt Lamb said.

One student senator wrote that "another concern was the similarity to the political groups on campus," TheDC reports.

The news outlet says students who still want to start a Turning Point USA chapter at Santa Clara can now petition the student senate's judicial branch.