UPDATE 7/9/20 2:19 PM:Jayne Howell, chairwoman of the Denton County Republican Party, gave the following statement to Texas Scorecard:

Banning people and groups from anywhere due to their political orientation is a fundamental violation to the U.S. Constitution. This is cancel culture and discrimination at its best. Campuses are to be an area where free speech flourishes, despite ones political leanings.

Members of a conservative student organization at the University of North Texas (UNT) are under siege from threats of violence, hexes, and a petition drive for the taxpayer-funded university to ban themall led by a coalition of extreme-left Democrat organizations. The situation has drawn the attention of Republican and Democrat county parties, a state representative, and UNT President Neal Smatresk, who says he is looking into allegations made by the extreme-left coalition.

The UNT chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT at UNT)a nonpartisan conservative youth organizationhas been a target of the extreme-left for some time. Last year, the chapters chairman, Kelly Neidert, described resistance her organization has faced from employees of taxpayer-funded UNT.

The situation caught the attention of State Rep. Tony Tinderholt (RArlington), who called for taxpayer-funded institutions, like UNT, that violate freedom of speech to be held accountable and punished.

Now, UNT College Democrats, allied with UNT GLAD(a student LGBTQorganization) and MUEVE (a Spanish acronym translated to mean Eternal Life United Student Movement), has started a petition to ban YCT at UNT.

Student organizations such as UNT GLAD and MUEVE advance extreme-left policies through race and sexual identity politics.

This extreme-left coalition accuses YCT at UNT of showing a pattern of racism, transphobia, and homophobia throughout the 2019 through 2020 school year.

They include as part of their evidence a post from YCT at UNTs Twitter account, which said, Pronouns in your [T]witter bio isnt a personality trait. This is in reference to the push from academic leftists for individuals to reject their gender identity and define themselves by how they feel, using pronouns such as they, them, or ze.

UNT GLAD responded with, Being white and Christian isnt a personality trait, to which the YCT at UNT account replied, Neither is having HIV but you guys based your club off of that.

Regarding that reply, Chairman Neidert told Texas Scorecard that the person who tweeted that was removed from the organization, but our account did send it.

We owned up to it and apologized to GLAD in person and removed the person who sent it, she added. They offered UNT GLAD a written Peace Treaty, apologizing for how the HIV tweet was interpreted.

They added, YCT is not here to appease your demands, but the group did offer a compromise of deleting their replies to UNT GLAD if they would do the same. YCT at UNT refused to delete their initial tweet.

The petition cites another Twitter post, in which YCT at UNT encouraged conservatives on campus to come out on National Coming Out Day and held a bake sale where whites were apparently charged higher prices for baked goods than others.

The extreme-left coalition claims this as evidence YCTs presencehas created a particularly unwelcoming environment for students of color.

Neidert argues they were trying to show the results of affirmative action. We chose different prices for minorities to show how affirmative action reflects races differently, she said. Its supposed to show an over-simplification of AA for people who might have never really understood exactly what it is.

The coalition is also holding YCT at UNT responsible for a controversial social media post by Will Crawford, who asked if one needs to have HIV in order to join UNT GLAD and if the organizations president has Super HIV. Neidert says she had not previously heard of Crawford.

The coalition is also holding YCT at UNT responsible for a controversial act by a previous iteration of the UNT chapter, which allegedly offered candy to students who captured people posing as illegal immigrants. That chapter was banned in 2005.

The petition also alleges YCT at UNT violates the universitys definition of equity.

In addition to this petition, YCT at UNT and Neidert have had threats of violence leveled against them, and they claim their account was recently hacked.

Neidert has been the target of doxxing (attempts to publish her private and identifying information on the internet) by a member of antifa, as well as hexes.

Originally posted here:

Democrats Declare War on Conservatives at University of North Texas - Texas Scorecard