U. of Washington College Republicans’ Recognition Is Yanked Over ‘Hurtful and Inappropriate Conduct’

AP Photo, Ted S. Warren

The University of Washington’s College Republicans chapter will lose its status as a registered student organization on Monday after both state and national College Republican groups revoked its charter for “hurtful and inappropriate conduct.”

The group, whose controversial actions have included an “affirmative-action bake sale” that based prices on buyers’ race and gender, has vowed to fight the decision.

The rift at Washington is happening at a time of ferment for Republican student groups. Some are doubling down on Trump-like nationalism, while others are trying to stay grounded in more traditional conservatism.

In a letter last month to the University of Washington’s vice president for student life, the national chairman of the College Republican National Committee wrote that the Washington State oversight group for Republican chapters had revoked the campus group’s charter in April 2018 for conduct unbecoming a chapter. The chapter therefore should not have continued to use the College Republican name, wrote the chairman, Chandler Thornton, whose committee oversees 1,800 College Republican chapters and more than 250,000 student members.

The Washington College Republican Federation instead granted official status to a different group, the Husky College Republicans, according to Thornton’s letter.

Since its charter was revoked, the UW College Republicans chapter has continued to engage in “hurtful and inappropriate conduct,” prompting both the state and national oversight groups to permanently rescind the charter, the letter stated. “We will have nothing to do with this unauthorized group, as it is the policy of the CRNC that campuses be free from hurtful or inappropriate speech and be a forum for safe, lively, and diverse opinions being expressed from every corner of America,” it said. Thornton did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

His letter did not specify which acts the national organization had found inappropriate. In addition to the bake sale, which the university’s president, Ana Mari Cauce, decried as offensive, the group has brought controversial speakers to the campus. Demonstrations turned chaotic outside a January 2017 appearance by one such speaker, Milo Yiannopoulos, and a supporter of Yiannopoulos shot a protester.

Last year the university agreed to pay $122,500 to lawyers for the College Republican chapter to settle a free-speech lawsuit. At issue was a $17,000 security fee the university had tried to collect as a condition of the group’s hosting a campus rally of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer. Patriot Prayer has attracted white supremacists to its rallies, which have sometimes turned violent. A federal district-court judge blocked the fee, which the campus group had argued would essentially squelch its free-speech rights by making it impossible to hold the event.

The president of the UW College Republicans, Armen Tooloee, said in an interview on Friday that his group had never been informed that its charter was being yanked. The chapter, he said, is entitled to a written notice, a hearing, and a chance to appeal the decision.

The affirmative-action bake sale, he said, “is a fairly typical, common event run by other Republican chapters, and none of the others have faced any pushback for holding these events.” If the bake sale were at the heart of the national committee’s objections, he said, “we’re being held to a different standard.”

In a Facebook post, the group said it was being unfairly branded as racist.

A university spokesman, Victor Balta, said members of the UW College Republicans can ask to register under a different name or join the now-recognized Husky College Republicans, which will take over the group’s office in the student union on Monday.

Tooloee said his group was considering those options, but added, “We’ve spent the past several years building our prominence and becoming one of the most successful Republican chapters in the country, and it would be a shame to lose that.”

Meanwhile, as controversy over President Trump’s conduct in office has intensified, some campus Republican groups are struggling to stake out or refine their positions on hot-button issues.

The College Republicans chapter at San Diego State University recently staged a right-wing rebrand after taking time off during a battle with its state organization, the California College Republicans, according to a report in the campus newspaper, The Daily Aztec.

The group’s president, Oliver Krvaric, told the paper the group would move away from “lukewarm” conservatism and would instead “push the envelope.” The group, which brands itself as “unapologetically Nationalist and America First,” unleashed a flurry of tweets defending the traditional celebration of Columbus Day, demanding the country “BUILD THE WALL,” and accusing universities of abandoning standards and “hurtling towards disrepute in the name of equality.”

Krvaric said that as the club shifts from the conservatism of the Reagan and Bush eras toward a more combative approach, he wants to offer a “loud alternative voice in the campus culture wars,” which he described as being between “the right and the right.”

Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.