YOUTH FOR WESTERN CIVILIZATION IS DONE AT TOWSON U.

Matthew Heimbach (pictured right with a fellow League of the South member) and his Towson University chapter of Youth for Western Civilization couldn’t keep his chapter alive for a full college year before their hatemongering and insults proved to be too much for even their very conservative student advisor. And once they lost that advisor, they lost their affiliation with the Student Government Association. Tsk tsk tsk…

The Towerlight

outh for Western Civilization is no longer a student group at Towson University, according to former YWC President Matthew Heimbach.

The group’s former advisor, mass communication and communication studies professor Richard Vatz, wrote a letter to Heimbach expressing why he could no longer be the group’s advisor. Because the group has no advisor, they are not able to be Student Government Association affiliated.

Heimbach said he received an email soon after from SGA President Matt Sikorski verifying that YWC couldn’t be SGA affiliated.

“They put so much pressure on our advisor and that caused him to drop out. And we can’t be SGA affiliated without an advisor,” Heimbach said. “We can’t be on campus without an advisor, so they found a loophole. It was bad. It’s been an interesting ride.”

Vatz said he spoke with Associate Vice President for Campus Life Terri Hall and Vice President for Student Affairs Deb Moriarty about YWC before writing the letter.

“They [YWC] were using rhetoric in their arguments that I found were not appropriate,” Vatz said. “In my dealings with Deb Moriarty and Teri Hall pertaining to issues arising with this group, I found them [Hall and Moriarty] to be extremely professional and reasonable.”

In his letter, Vatz said that he attended the Unity in the Community Campus Forum discussion, which lasted for more than an hour, and had two concerns:

The letter states that “except for Black Student Union president Kenan Herbert, there was no one who expressed the slightest concern that YWC had been threatened, harassed and mistreated on campus,” and “no one sympathetic to YWC expressed the slightest concern regarding YWC’s frightening rhetoric, referring to political opponents as ‘cancer,’ using the words Islam and Muslim disparagingly, and referencing ‘disgusting degenerates that make up our opposition.’”

“I’m sorry, but that is not how impressive and serious conservatives argue their case,” Vatz said in the letter. “I realize that I have been your advisor only nominally, but I cannot in good conscience advise a group that attacks people or groups personally or tactlessly or does not recognize their dignity and the value of dignified argument in the marketplace of ideas.”

Heimbach said recent chalking incidents put YWC back in the spotlight.

“Chalking that I wasn’t directly involved in played a part. We found some of our freshman doing stupid stuff. My guys are basically angry and sad that they basically killed the group,” Heimbach said.