Dear Student Service Fees committee,

This is a plea to consider the negative role that Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, Students for a Conservative Voice, Turning Point USA and Minnesota Students for Liberty have on campus climate and the University of Minnesota community in your upcoming allocation of student fees money. These groups, which have a small and overlapping membership with the College Republicans (a group SSF funds cannot technically be distributed to), have been embroiled in scandals for decades now, yet the fees committee continually provides each group with student fees money each year, amounting to literally millions of dollars over the years. I encourage you to defund these groups on the grounds that they foster a climate of fear and hostility toward students of color, trans and nonbinary students, immigrants and women.

You may be aware of some of the scandals, but not all, or may consider their obviously improper behaviors more an opportunity to learn rather than something worthy of defunding. Either way, it is worth articulating a few of the things CFACT, SCV, TPUSA and YAL have been at the head of. 

In spring of 2014, the Minnesota Daily reported that in their SSF applications it was uncovered that the groups had been plagiarizing from MPIRG’s applications to pad their budgets. Sean Niemic, the CFACT president at the time, was on record stating the group routinely copied and pasted from other groups’ materials in previous years as well. The response was to reject their funding for that year and to encourage them to reapply with non-stolen material next year. This, after pushback from other groups and likely threat of legal action, was overturned by University bureaucrats and CFACT was given 90 percent of its plagiarized budget proposal by administrative decision. Now, CFACT is threatening legal action against the University again for the decision to move their Ben Shapiro speaking event to a more manageable space for University police and staff than Willey Hall. 

These are instances of technical and legal misconduct and have little to do with the day-to-day activities or programs of these organizations. Their programs actually pose a larger problem, which should make us wonder what these groups actually contribute to the University.

This school year, they brought Ben Shapiro and Lauren Southern to speak on campus, both of whom cut their teeth and gained notoriety for attacking immigrants, Muslims and transgender individuals — things the SSF committee probably wasn’t intending to foster on our campus. In past years, the Minnesota Republic has run an April issue entitled “White History Month,” both dismissing the need for Black History Month in February and replacing it with a vaguely White Supremacist masthead — again, SSF-funded. They have painted the now infamous “build the wall” bridge panel on Washington Avenue bridge, and in the previous year painted a zombie scene where armed right-wingers took aim at liberal zombies. They brought Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos to campus to attack feminism and debunk rape culture. They use SSF to bring conservative students to the shooting range. They spend SSF money to produce beer cozies mocking the legitimacy of the fees allocation itself. The contribution to campus climate is plainly visible here, and it amounts to, at best, bringing controversial professional trolls to campus and, at worst, fostering hate, distrust and violence toward students of color, trans and nonbinary people, immigrants and women.

I encourage you to assess the role these groups have on campus, whether that role is in line with the mission of SSF, and then to defund the groups if appropriate. Very few student groups receive any money at all from the University, and most of them do just fine — let’s not choose to give students’ hard earned cash to the vilest and most hate-filled groups, they can do just fine without it as well.

This letter was lightly edited for clarity and style.

Matthew Boynton is a University of Minnesota Ph.D. Candidate in American Studies and a member of the Students for a Democratic Society