Turning Point USA Students File Federal Lawsuit Against SUNY Cortland Over Believed First Amendment Violation
“We silence voices all the time in this country,” SUNY Cortland President Erik Bitterbaum allegedly told students.
Turning Point USA (TPUSA) students, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), filed a lawsuit Wednesday against SUNY Cortland for allegedly violating students’ First Amendment rights by discriminating against the group’s viewpoint.
The lawsuit accuses the university, its student association, SUNY Cortland President Erik Bitterbaum, and SUNY Cortland professor, Nikolay Karkov, of imposing their “faulty interpretation of the First Amendment protections to silence student views on campus.”
During the Fall semester 2023, plaintiffs and SUNY Cortland students Gabriella Delorenzo and Megan Rothmund formed a group interested in forming a TPUSA chapter at the university. The lawsuit asserts that the plaintiffs “complied with all requirements” set by the student association and Bitterbaum “to become a recognized student organization” which would allot the group access to designated chapter meeting spaces on campus among other benefits.
The lawsuit further claims that Karkov “objected to and attacked” the students’ views, resulting in the Student Government’s Student Senate and Karkov rejecting the group’s application to form a recognized campus chapter under the university’s “Nonrecognition Policy.”
In a press release, ADF Legal Counsel Matthew Hoffmann explained, “SUNY Cortland’s [Nonrecognition] policy requires the student government to approve every organization seeking recognition and it allows students to deny recognition for any or no reason at all. Allowing the views of the perceived majority to gatekeep campus discussion discriminates based on viewpoint. But the First Amendment exists precisely to protect competing views.”
The students fully complied with the terms of the policy over two months, however, when plaintiffs “respectfully presented TPUSA to the Student Senate,” defendants “launched a planned assault on their views,” according to the lawsuit. Specifically, the defendants are accused of “assail[ing] what they perceived to be the national Turning Point USA organization’s views on gender identity, critical race theory, and race relations.” The questioning went on for approximately 100 minutes, according to the students involved.
The Student Senate then voted to withhold recognition of the proposed TPUSA chapter, after which, the plaintiffs met with defendant Bitterbaum, who discouraged the students from applying again to receive recognition. The students allege that in their meeting with Bitterbaum, the SUNY Cortland President told them, “We silence voices all the time in this country. That’s the tragedy and also the greatness of democracy.”
“According to Defendant Bitterbaum, suffering viewpoint discrimination is merely par for the course in our democracy,” the lawsuit asserts.
“Colleges are meant to be marketplaces of ideas where students learn to respect and defend diverse beliefs held throughout the country, but unfortunately, many college officials are encouraging students to silence opposing views,” ADF Legal Counsel Hoffman also stated in a press release announcing the filing.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of TPUSA students accuses the defendants’ “Nonrecognition Policy” and actions of violating “the First and Fourteenth Amendments and have caused and continue to cause irreparable harm” to the students.
TPUSA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet said that the organization is “deeply concerned about the open hostility our students, Gabriella Delorenzo and Megan Rothmund, were subjected to during the SUNY Cortland’s Student Senate hearing.” Adding, “Most notably, Professor Nikolay Karkov opted for inflammatory remarks over constructive dialogue, which raises grave concerns about the status of free speech on that campus. TPUSA stands by our SUNY Cortland students and will pursue all available avenues to address the injustices they’ve faced. We call on the administration to uphold diversity of thought and fairness in its treatment of all student organizations.”
