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Student government at Baldwin Wallace University, in a suburb of Cleveland, have voted against having a Turning Point USA chapter at their school.
Grace Pruchnicki, a senior who has been working to get the club officially recognized, told Fox News Digital that the student government turned down the chapter in lopsided fashion.
“We had been working for two months to try and get our charter approved,” Pruchnicki told Fox News Digital in a statement, and added that she was not speaking on behalf of the university or Turning Point USA. “On November 11th, the student Senate voted no without giving a reason. We later found out that the student government does not have access to their own bylaws in order to make an informed decision.”
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Three student senators voted in favor, 16 opposed, and one abstained.
“Our president of the university has been trying to work with us, but we still do not feel heard or that the university has been taking our concerns seriously about the harassment we have faced,” Pruchnicki said.
“We are still moving forward with an appeal process and hope that process can get started in January when we get back from break,” she added.
In a statement from Baldwin Wallace to Fox News Digital, the university said its student Senate ended its review of TPUSA’s application on Nov. 11, and that after “proper parliamentary procedure and open deliberation, the Senate voted, and the application was denied.”
STUDENT SENATE REJECTS TURNING POINT USA CHAPTER RE-ESTABLISHMENT AT CALIFORNIA LUTHERAN UNIVERSITY
In the statement, the university added: “This decision was made following an open forum where approximately 40 students attended. Prior to the discussion and deliberation, Dean of Students Dr. Léna Crain commended the students gathered for using expressive activity and student government as a means of productively sharing their perspectives.”
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Lee Fisher, president of Baldwin Wallace University, said in a statement to Fox News Digital that he supported the approval of the Turning Point USA chapter.
“In keeping with these values, I support the approval of the proposed Turning Point USA chapter,” Fisher said. “While this reflects BW’s shared commitment to free expression, it is my personal perspective. It is neither the official position of the university nor an endorsement of any particular viewpoint.”
Pruchnicki had previously told Fox News Digital that during her work to get the group to be recognized, she was sometimes met with hostility from fellow students.
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“We have people that tear down our posters every single day,” Pruchnicki said. “We have people that have filled out a general interest form so that we can have a list of people to contact when we start having meetings. And we’ve had a lot of hate speech in those forms that people have filled out.”
Requests for new Turning Point USA chapters have surged since Charlie Kirk’s assassination. The 31-year-old co-founder of Turning Point USA was shot and killed Sept. 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University.
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