After Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds (R) signed a bill into law requiring public schools to respect free speech on campus, administrators at Southeastern Community College are meeting with an attorney to determine whether there is any leeway in the legislation that would allow the school to blacklist a Turning Point USA student group.
“We do have an application for a student group that is heavily right-winged in its mentality and presentation,” Southeastern Community College President Michael Ash told a board of trustees meeting on Tuesday, “You will get, if you haven’t already, push-back from faculty and staff who think the group shouldn’t be sanctioned.”
President Ash told concerned board members that the college is working with an attorney to determine whether the school has to approve the conservative student group, given that a “free speech” bill has recently been signed into law by governor Kim Reynolds, according to the Hawk Eye.
The new law requires public universities and community colleges to adopt policies that respect free speech on their campuses, as well as guarantee the right of students to organize in groups regardless of their viewpoints.
“If they’re going to form a student Nazi group, I assume we would find a way to stop it because it’s a hate group,” said trustee Lanny Hillyard, in a bizarre statement suggesting that the pro-Israel student group focused on free markets and limited government is associated with Nazism.
President Ash said that the approval of the Turning Point USA group is currently on hold while the school receives legal consultation to determine whether the college has a choice in the matter.
The report added that the community college is also working on creating a policy that could potentially prevent a student group from campus if the school decides that it is a “hate group.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo and on Instagram.
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