YOUTH FOR WESTERN CIVILIZATION NOW A RECOGNIZED STUDENT GROUP IN TOWSON UNIVERSITY

Every year, every university has to have that one right-wing often Leadership Institute-funded dimbulb on campus and for Towson University this year, that designation goes to Matthew Heimbach (pictured, right with a member of the League of the South) a member of the hate group League of the South who has brought Youth for Wester Civilization to the university. On Tuesday, the group was officially recognized as a student organization despite huge opposition to the move. But hey, that just means the next step is to deal with them as they try to do anything on campus. They should never get a moment’s rest and pressure needs to be kept on them. The more they feel they cannot organize, the less of a problem they will be. YWC has only but a few members each university they are at, and when someone graduates, few pick up their banner. The only thing that needs to be done now is to ensure that in the future no one will want to in the first place.

One People’s Project

Despite oppostion from the student body stemming from concerns of the promotion of white supremacist groups and activities on campus, the Student Government Association (SGA) of Towson University in Maryland passed the consitiution of the White Nationalist Youth for Western Civilization Tuesday, making them an official student organization.

According to the Towson University newspaper the Towerlight, the weekly SGA meeting was moved the the Potomac Lounge from the Loch Raven room in anticipation of a large student and administrator turnout, and by the start of the meeting at 5 p.m., only standing room was available to attendees.

For close to an hour the students spoke for and against approving the organization, whose Towson leader, Matthew Heimbach is a member of the Maryland Chapter of the League of the South, a group that according to the Southern Poverty Law Center who lists them as a hate group, is an institution devoted to reviving Southern heritage and pushing for secession that became such an increasingly racist organization opposing racial intermarriage, defending segregation as a policy designed to protect the “integrity” of both the black and the white races, and its national leader Michael Hill calling antebellum slavery “God-ordained”.

In a video with another Maryland LOS member, Heimbach spoke of hosting a Confederate Commemoration Week on campus, as well as a “Stand with Israel” event which in an interview with the Towerlight  he will organize in conjunction with David Horowitz’s Freedom Center, which has been a primary source of anti-Muslim hate campaigns in recent years. The Freedom Center’s Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch once spoke on behalf of the Leadership Institute at a YWC event at American University, and YWC members like Taylor Rose of Liberty University have participated in the rallies organized by Spencer and his partner Pamela Geller of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), another group recognized as a hate group by the SPLC, against the Islamic Center planned near the site of the World Trade Center. Towson Hilel, the primary Jewish student group on campus has said they will not associate themselves with this event.

The faculty advisor at Towson is listed as Dr. Richard Vatz, a professor in the Department of Mass Communication and Communication Studies who has appeared on programs such as CNN’s Crossfire, and blogs for the website Red Maryland where he has written that diversity awareness on college campuses is a “hoax” if it doesn’t address supposed “anti-conservative discrimination”,  but has also defended then-Supreme Court Justice Nominee Sonia Sotomayor from charges by conservatives that remarks she made that were to them racist.

Prior to the SGA meeting, there was an op-ed  published in the Towerlight urging the body to deny YWC recognition as a student group, that noted their connections to other white nationalist organizations. “In giving SGA funding and recognition to the Youth for Western Civilization, their existence will then be seen as encouraged by the University, Towson Senior Erin Fitzgerald wrote. “Does Towson University and its students, who supply the funding through their tuition, really want to support a group that spreads a message of hatred and intolerance?”

It is believed that Matthew Heimbach’s membership in the League of the South makes him the first Youth for Western Civilization member publicly identified as also a member of a group listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.