Conservative Group Fights Back and Wins

A pair of incidents remind us that we are still living in a democracy and peaceful pushback can work, even on a college campus.

Both stories involve Young Americans For Freedom (known as YAF). Two years ago, Virginia Tech cut off funding to the campus chapter of YAF when the group invited former U. S. treasurer Bay Buchanan, sister of conservative columnist Pat Buchanan, on campus to speak on immigration reform.

Now, “After a long battle, Virginia Tech administrators reversed the Student Budget Board’s decision and returned funding to VT YAF,” Emily Jashinsky writes in the Winter 2016 issue of Libertas. Libertas is published by the Young America’s Foundation.  Between 2014 and 2016, Fox News covered the story and V-Tech administrators did not like the publicity.

Last year, when the YAF chapter at George Washington University tried to opt out of sensitivity training, leftwing groups on campus demanded that the chapter be defunded, according to Jashinsky, but “GW YAF’s story went viral, earning coverage on Fox News, Daily Caller, Breitbart, Washington Times, and many other outlets.”

“Most importantly, top administrators assured students that no mandatory sensitivity training would be held at George Washington University.”

The thread working through both stories to their resolution is that the students “took their battles off campus,” as former AIA executive director, and YAF alumni, Dan Flynn, has often advised.

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