College Display Under Fire
If Hood College administrators want a controversial conservative display taken down on campus, they will have to take it down themselves, said Chris Gardner, president of the Hood College Republicans. “We won’t do it,” he said.
The display, [pictured above from on group's Facebook page] intended to promote conservative policy on hot topics, has elicited rebukes and been dubbed “hate speech." The messages about abortion and transgender issues have come under the most fire, Gardner said.
The display case outside of the Student Life office on the second floor of the Whitaker Campus Center includes a quote from right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro, who says that transgender people suffer from mental illness, and it is harmful to indulge them. Another labels abortions “genocide,” and “the number one killer of black lives.”
Gardner, who spoke from Florida, said members of the club were meeting with Hood’s Dean of Students Olivia G. White, Ph.D today about the display. If administrators take the material down, his group will retaliate with a display on “anti-free speech” actions on the part of Hood officials. He does not believe it violates the college's nondiscrimination policy.
Gardner said his group knew the display was controversial, but they did not expect the backlash they received. So far, he said, $200 has been donated to Planned Parenthood in his name. Gardner, a Catholic, said his group has been called “sexist, racist, transphobic, just everything under the sun.”
He doesn’t even agree with all the messaging, especially the one on transgender people, Gardner said. His cousin is an openly transgender drill sergeant, and he was friendly with transgender students in middle school. But he does support free speech, as do some people reacting on social media, he said. “We did it to make people think. Not to make people angry,” Gardner said.
His group is diverse, with black, Asian, and women members, he said, and are looking for an opportunity to come together with people who disagree. More than 100 students have engaged in “dialogue” about the display so far, Gardner said. Overall, he is taken aback by the heat of negativity from some people, but said that “hundreds” of people expressed support.
“And we’re the ‘weirdos,’” Gardner said. “We make up half the country … but because half the country thinks differently than the other half, we need to come together to speak and come to actual solutions to those differences.”
The group’s facebook page post has varying reactions, including one from Walter Olson, senior fellow at the Cato Institute. “I'm an active local Republican with an interest in the Hood community. Much of the content in this display exemplifies simple-minded, talk-show-caliber conservative sloganeering, and some of it is downright insulting to some members of the Hood community likely to read it. Hood is an institution of higher learning with standards of rigor and civility to uphold. Please find better examples of intellectually sound conservatism, or expect to lose the battle of persuasion,” he wrote. [printed with permission]
Gardner said that some people’s unwillingness to “budge” on any of these issues, and the subsequent vilification of people with differing opinions, is why Donald Trump was elected president. When asked if his group would have put this particular display if Trump hadn’t been elected, Gardner said that the country has gone through a “cultural shift,” and needs to talk more openly about tough issues.
[Photos provided by Tim Sylvia, Hood College]The Frederick Extra has asked Hood College spokesperson Laurie Ward for information on the outcome of the group’s meeting with White, and will continue to follow this story.
