On Friday, March 5, the Skidmore College Club Affairs Committee met to decide whether a chapter of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) would be allowed to form on campus. Shortly after the meeting, the Skidmore College community was notified that YAL’s application had been denied.
Though Young Americans for Liberty claims to be a non-partisan, “pro-liberty youth organization advancing liberty on campus and in American electoral politics” and a welcoming organization for people “all across the political spectrum,” there is little evidence that the organization has any commitment to these ideals. Originally founded after libertarian Ron Paul’s failed presidential campaign in 2008 as an offshoot of “Students for Ron Paul,” YAL has a history of promoting libertarian and conservative propaganda on campuses under the guise of free speech. Past YAL initiatives have included the “right to self defense,” a campaign promoting access to firearms on campus, and a Halloween themed activity advocating for students to “educate ... fellow students about the zombies in government who need to feed on living to survive.” Additionally, YAL received over $2.3 million in funding between 2013 to 2017 from the Charles Koch Foundation, a conservative think tank known for its climate change skepticism, ties to white nationalists, and refusal to support universities that will not commit to furthering their conservative agenda.
In 2019, a YAL officer at the University of Nevada, Reno was discovered to be a member of the American Identity Movement, formerly known as Identity Evropa, an alt-right, white nationalist organization. In leaked text exchanges, this officer bragged about convincing his friends to join the American Identity Movement and listed countries that have expelled Jewish citizens throughout history. Later that year, the president of YAL at the University of Michigan was also revealed to be a member of the American Identity Movement. Well known white supremacist Alex Witoslawski, also a member of the American Identity Movement, similarly served as the Illinois state chair of Young Americans for Liberty before getting a job at the Leadership Institute, a Koch-funded think tank. This same think tank manages Campus Reform, a website advocating against conservative discrimination on college campuses. Other YAL chapters across the country have hosted Milo Yiannopoulos, the far-right former editor of Breitbart News, who is known for his islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, racist, and misogynistic remarks and views.
In this case, actions speak louder than words. Regardless of YAL’s vague mission statement centering free speech, past campaigns and initiatives promoted by the national organization and individual chapters demonstrate how detrimental a new chapter of YAL would be to the Skidmore community. In an attempt to appear unbiased, the College and President Marc Conner have repeatedly affirmed their commitment to free speech. What the College and President have failed to recognize, however, is that allowing YAL on campus is not an issue of free speech, but instead an issue of hate speech. YAL has failed, time and time again, to truly promote free speech and has instead solidified itself as a far-right pipeline, as exemplified by numerous chapters and chapter leaders.
In a Change.org petition garnering over 1,700 signatures, students, alumni, parents, and community members denounced the approval of YAL on Skidmore’s campus as a result of the potential harm the group posed to both the College and the greater community. After YAL was denied its petition, the club’s would-be president, Hannah Davis ‘22, denounced the rejection as “biased” and the result of a “cancel culture campaign.” What Davis has failed to recognize in her denouncement is her own hypocrisy.
For a club that tries to promote liberty, YAL’s attempts to undermine the democratic process that defines the club approval procedure is a violation of the liberalism the club claims to uphold. The members of the Skidmore College Club Affair Committee are democratically elected representatives that then serve on the committee, much like how members of Congress are elected and then serve on various committees. These student representatives are held accountable by their constituents, other members of the Skidmore Community. Student government was not designed to merely be a bureaucratic arm of the college that enforces rules and regulations, but was instead given authority from the administration to be the voice of the student body. When a large portion of the student body calls on the student government to reject a club, the student government's decision to reject that club is reflective of a fundamental and legitimate part of the democratic process.
Supporters of Skidmore YAL have further tried to undermine the democratic process of on-campus elections by suggesting that unopposed races and elections without enough votes are illegitimate. Liberty, as it is defined in the American political tradition, ensures that all members of a political community have both the right to vote and the right not to vote. If students choose not to vote or run for office, that does not undermine the process, but is instead an exercise of their liberty. YAL’s attempted delegitimization of the Student Government Association’s election process is not only a rejection of individual liberty, but also an active campaign to discourage faith in democratic institutions and processes, the same institutions and processes YAL claims to uphold as beacons of individual liberty.
Likewise, Skidmore College is a private institution that is under no obligation to give every student a platform. Davis said in an interview with the Times Union that the College “is going to surrender to left leaning extremists, rather than stand for the freedom of speech which this country was founded upon.” Davis then went on to say that "It's not going to be easy, going forward if the students control whether we exist on campus or not" during an interview with Fox and Friends First. These quotes not only exemplify a lack of understanding for how private institutions work (a disturbing mistake for the president of a club promoting decentralization and deregulation), but also fails to recognize that student tuition pays for student government fees, thus acting as a form of tax used to fund the micro-government.
YAL is ultimately only willing to protect democratic values when they work in their favor. When the democratic process failed to produce YAL’s desired results, they sought help from the administration, thus further undermining the students’ democratic political community and instead turning to a non-democratic body for support.
How can a club so fixated on individual liberty be so ready to disregard the will of the individual? How can a club that claims to uphold free speech and assembly be so disgruntled when free speech and assembly are used to ensure their demise? How can a club that denounces large central governments turn to a “large central government,” Skidmore’s administration, for help when they don’t get their way?
The answer is simple, really. YAL is not any of the things it claims to be. It is riddled with hypocrisy and paradoxes, only wanting to further its own agenda by using dubious language and antagonizing those who are brave enough to call YAL what it really is: a platform for right-wing extremists and a license for hate speech. The rejection of YAL’s petition was not a violation of individual liberty, but rather an example of how individual liberty can be virtuously harnessed for the good of the greater community.