Art Insults Life

LUBBOCK, TX—The Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT) chapter at Texas Tech University, a student group affiliated with CampusReform.org, will protest the controversial “Tornado of Ideas” sculpture on campus from 10am to 2pm today [April 29].

YCT will gather signatures on paper and online for a petition to remove the sculpture and send a letter of protest to the president of the university, the Board of Regents, and other alumni and supporters of the university. The online petition can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/tornado-petition

Texas Tech University spent $142,000 to purchase the sculpture.  Among the scenes on the piece are  a version of the Texas Tech mascot, the Masked Rider, holding a javelin, attempting to sodomize a police officer and two lesbian women sitting arm-in-arm looking out at passersby. On top of a book labeled “The Way Things Ought to Be” is a woman staring at a man clinging to the edge of the sculpture about to fall off.

The work also features a number of books, including Soul on Ice, written by a former Black Panther leader who was imprisoned for serial rape, which he called “revolutionary.” More questionable titles, such as Quotations from Chairman Mao, who killed over 65 million people in China, and Das Kapital by Karl Marx are included as well. Also included are Michael Moore’s Dude Where’s My Country and The Terrorist Next Door:  The Military Movement and the Radical Right.

“We would like to see this sculpture removed immediately, and replaced with some sort of memorial to Colonel Rick Husband,” said Jeff Morris, Tech YCT Chairman.  Husband was a Texas Tech Alumni who was killed in the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003.  “This would represent the University much better than this piece of far-left propaganda,” Morris added.

“There is no reason why our administration should purchase art that in no way represents the University or its ideals.  That this expensive purchase was made without proper input from the people who are paying for it is an outrage,” said YCT Texas Tech Vice-Chairman Ryan Scott.

CampusReform.org is the Leadership Institute’s comprehensive grassroots mobilization tool for liberty-loving student activists.  For more information about CampusReform.org, contact Bryan Bernys, CampusReform.org National Director, at bbernys@campusreform.org or 703-247-2000.

The Young Conservatives of Texas (http://www.techyct.org), a non-partisan conservative youth organization, has been fighting for conservative values for more than a quarter century in the Lone Star State. YCT and its members participate in the entire spectrum of Texas politics, attempting to shape the policies of the state of Texas through a number of means including educating students and the public, advocating conservative fiscal and social policies, campus activism, campaigning for political candidates, and rating the Texas legislature.