Do you remember when I wrote an article back in October about Turning Point USA members at Emerson College facing intense discrimination from administration and fellow students after TPUSA materials were deemed “racist” at the beginning of the school year?
On September 29, the TPUSA chapter passed out stickers reading “China Kinda Sus.” This resulted in extreme backlash from the school, with many statements being sent out from the school administration and student organizations denouncing “racism and bigotry against Chinese individuals.” Because of this, the club faced removal and the chapter board members were at risk for disciplinary action from the school. All statements by Emerson were made without discussing the materials with the TPUSA chapter leadership. KJ Lynum, the chapter Vice President, is herself a Chinese Singaporean. The stickers were reported to the student conduct board, which determined that the stickers were a violation of the “Bias-Related Behavior Policy.” Following the board’s ruling, TPUSA was suspended from campus and was unable to host any activities such as meetings, tabling, and other events. The suspension was quietly lifted by the school in November.
Following the ruling by the board in October, writers for Emerson’s newspaper, The Berkeley Beacon, began writing articles in an attack of Turning Point USA and the students involved at Emerson. On October 7, 2021, Emerson student Justin Chen published an inflammatory opinion piece regarding the sticker controversy. In the article, he posed the question: “Should TPUSA’s racist and insensitive views still be allowed a platform on campus?” Chen states that he was formerly a member of the Emerson chapter, and felt like he was “slapped in the face” by the distribution of the China sticker. He claimed that Lynum was a racist towards her own race. Although Chen was arguing that the China stickers contained hurtful language, his article was filled with hurtful remarks towards members of TPUSA and used his platform to bully and defame those students.
The Berkeley Beacon continued to publish TPUSA slander when another article was published two days after Chen’s. It included a quote from a student interview about the sticker controversy. This international student stated that “Americans have a political bias toward China.” Even in the second article, which was not an opinion piece, the bias against TPUSA was evident. The article contained bold remarks including a statement from a student saying “I was kind of surprised it was approved by [SEAL], just because Turning Point’s whole thing is to trigger liberals,” said Noah Schulte, a junior political communications major. “[The college] should be doing everything they can to punish these students because what they were doing was blatantly racist.” These claims were made after TPUSA students explained that the stickers were targeting the Chinese Communist Party and not a racist gesture.
The students writing for the Berkeley Beacon were writing the articles in an effort to express their hatred towards bullying and anything that could hurt someone’s feelings. In this, they were extremely hypocritical by using their platform to promote anti-bullying rhetoric while bullying and defaming another group. It is evident that the left has no intention to actually eradicate bullying. In turn for anti-CCP stickers, they publically made hurtful statements that resulted in a severe backlash towards the students targeted.
TPUSA Chapter President at Emerson College, Sam Neves, told TPUSA HQ, “At Emerson, distributing a meme sticker that criticizes a tyrannical foreign government creates a hostile environment but weaponizing the school’s official newspaper to bully and personally defame students is totally acceptable.”
Leftists love to preach how much they despise bullying, but their actions rarely align with the words they say. The writers for the Berkeley Beacon are prime examples of the hypocrisy of the left. When relaying the events, Sam Neves said, “The Beacon doesn’t like our organization and they are willing to sacrifice the truth and journalism ethics just to attack us.” Thank you Emerson journalists, for confirming exactly what conservative students mean when they say they face political discrimination daily and are treated differently than their left-leaning peers.
