A Discourse on Lawrence University Turning Point USA
Tracing the Implications of a Fundamental Misunderstanding
This article that I wrote alongside Carios Huseby is to be published in the Op-Ed section of Lawrence University’s student newspaper, The Lawrentian, on Friday, February 27.
Patriots of Faith, formerly Lawrence University Turning Point USA (TPUSA), first met last fall term and has caused much controversy and discourse on campus. Recently, the organization has asked the Lawrence University Community Council (LUCC), the campus organization that decides who has access to the Student Activities Fund (SAF), for formal recognition as a club. Formal recognition would allow Patriots of Faith access to the SAF, a pool of money that takes from $285 of everyone’s yearly tuition, totaling about $300,000 cumulative per year. The SAF does not come from federal tax dollars.
After their bid for recognition, a referendum was introduced to LUCC, the full text of which was sent to all Lawrence community members in an email from LUCC. The referendum, if passed, would call LUCC to “deny recognition to [Patriots of Faith], or, if recognition has already been granted, revoke such recognition in accordance with LUCC and Lawrence University policy,” and therefore TPUSA would “not be eligible to receive funding from Lawrence University or the Lawrence University Community Council.” The referendum requires 50% of the campus community (students and staff) to vote “in favor” for it to take effect.
Make no mistake: this is not a ban on TPUSA, Patriots of Faith, or conservative viewpoints on Lawrence’s campus. Not only does the referendum explicitly clarify that LUCC “shall not restrict the rights of individuals associated with [Patriots of Faith] to engage in peaceful expression or assembly on campus,” but this group has, evident from their Instagram account, had no problem meeting without the seal of LUCC recognition. The problem, for leaders of Patriots of Faith like Zach Currier, who has recently released multiple press releases to conservative media outlets, seems to be that their organization does not have painless and ubiquitous access to the SAF pool.
Last January, during the petition for the LUCC’s referendum which would deny “Patriots of Faith” club recognition, Walden asked the organizers: have you considered the potential for external pressure to enter this student conflict? The answer from Lawrence’s TPUSA chapter is now clear, published through multiple posts on X (amassing tens of thousands of views), an article in conservative web magazine The Federalist, a letter on AppletonWI.org, and a radio interview with “Right-wing hippie” talk show host Vicki McKenna.1
This outreach by chapter president Zach Currier to local and nationwide media, rife with misinformation, is nothing short of virulent and dangerous to the whole Lawrence student body. It is not an appeal for discourse or antidiscrimination. It is an escalation. We argue that this turn to the media, in its method and content, represents a turn in the objectives of this unofficial student organization and reflects greater conservative media outlets and pundits’ own tactics of coercion. This particular episode, with its misinformation and use of patently antagonistic language, reinforces our claim that Lawrence TPUSA would not be able to peacefully coexist on campus.
There is an overwhelming proclivity to brush off the current discourse regarding Lawrence TPUSA and the referendum. Jokes and hate comments are release mechanisms, but they are not motors for change. They make us feel good, but they fail to help us understand why we are irked, hurt, or angry. But the present outreach to off-campus media spells something different, and it is important that we take it seriously. To understand why we believe this recent turn to be far from laughable, it will be useful to analyze Currier’s letter to AppletonWI.org and his radio interview with Vicki McKenna. These are public statements.
Currier titles his letter to AppletonWI.org “Lawrence University Group Under Siege.”2 This is already reason to give pause: under siege is not the language of dialogue or conversation. And the letter ends with the sentence: “We are behind enemy lines, and any support media wise I believe will help us!” Most striking is the language Currier chooses to use. Currier claims that Lawrence TPUSA will “attempt to hold respectable conversation with our peers to debate policy and faith,” yet within the same paragraph labels themselves as “behind enemy lines.” Are they among enemies or peers? And what message does it send to call the interlocutors of free and open discourse enemies? Does it seek to ameliorate discord? No, it does not. It slowly becomes lucid that the end goal of this off-campus media campaign, which has already caught the eye of a politician running for state governor (and have seen individuals tagging larger conservative media figures, like LibsofTikTok), has a far larger scope than simply establishing a club on campus.3 It is an attempt at placing Lawrence University in the national spotlight, and to send a message of conservative political predominance to the student body. It is an entirely different question whether the leadership of this organization is aware of what they are fomenting.
Moreover, the content of the letter indicates that it was likely sent out to several news groups (The Federalist uses Currier’s materials for their article).4 It suggests that this was meant for widespread consumption and coverage that would bring pressure not only to the student body, but the greater university administration. Many issues can arise from this, but the most pertinent dilemma is the intrusion of uninformed actors. And it is possible that the uninformed actors include the leadership of Lawrence TPUSA themselves. In Currier’s interview with Vicki McKenna, he fails to properly state the acronym of LUCC to his host (“the Lawrence University something commission, committee” - 3:18), and voices confusion about the process of club affiliation posed by the LUCC Steering Committee (3:38).5 Amidst their dialogue, McKenna places incredulity on the reported $70k price tag of the university (2:16, 12:06), a cost virtually no student pays as 99% of Lawrence students receive scholarships.6 Their conversation is riddled with misinformation. An egregious example follows when McKenna at one point asks Currier, “so the steering committee does not want to recognize TPUSA already, and then 10% of students at Lawrence signed a petition for a binding referendum that would ban you from ever starting a chapter.” Currier responds: “Yes ma’am” (3:39). As stated at the opening of this article, we clarify that this binding referendum does not “ban” the TPUSA chapter whatsoever, and rather bars them from the SAF.
It is important to note that student opposition to “Patriots of Faith” is not a matter of conservative values existing on campus. Instead, it is a stance against the club as a Trojan Horse for Turning Point USA, a national organization equipped with a reputation that is not only staunchly anti-intellectual but opposed to a swath of identities in the United States today. The Professor Watchlist and national firestorms, such as the controversy surrounding University of Oklahoma graduate assistant Mel Curth, do not reflect a thriving culture of discourse but of political witchhunts and instability.7 Curth, after she gave a student a failing grade for an essay that did not meet the assignment requirements, was dismissed from her job after conservative media painted the interaction between Curth and the student as something much more than a classroom interaction. The student cried to conservative media outlets (such as the national chapter of TPUSA) that this failing grade was not a reflection of her work but rather a violation of her free speech rights. Because she mentioned the Bible instead of the required texts, and because Curth is a transgender woman, what would ordinarily be a standard consequence for not following the assignment directions became the justification conservative media outlets and pundits used to ruthlessly attack Curth. No longer just a graduate assistant, she quickly became an evil villain who hates God and wants to push her left-wing agenda. Organizations like TPUSA found the perfect target for their Hour of Hate. We fear we may see the Power of the Pitchfork, previously exercised on Curth, when we see similar patterns in the language Currier uses in his letter to AppletonWI.org. He refers to the curriculum taught at Lawrence as “the Godless rhetoric” as well as asking his fellow conservatives to “continue the fight until we finish the race.” It is clear by Currier’s words that this is no longer a fight about club recognition or even a fight about campus politics but rather a fight of Biblical power and implication. This is not a peaceful dialogue but a violent call to arms against students who do not agree with Currier.
The attempt by Lawrence University’s TPUSA chapter to register as a student club has gone far beyond its original intent. By organizing a public campaign, a maelstrom of misinformation interlaced with antagonistic language amongst local and national media outlets, it reinforces that such an organization has no place on campus, for it no longer seeks to have a conversation, but to draw a cautionary lesson of those who criticize them. As Vicki McKenna said in her interview with Currier, “The world isn’t a rubber stamp on your ideology” (13:57). An overwhelming number of students on campus feel unsafe enough about Patriots of Faith having access to a portion of their tuition that they are willing to go through the painstaking amount of paperwork to try and stop it. So what does it say about this club that their reaction was to turn towards conservative media groups, which have time and time again proven to impose disastrous consequences for those they villainize?
https://appletonwi.org/lawrence-university-student-group-under-siege/
https://thefederalist.com/2026/02/20/turning-point-usa-chapter-not-welcome-at-elite-wisconsin-private-school/
https://wiba.iheart.com/featured/vicki-mckenna/content/2026-02-19-426-the-vicki-mckenna-show-lawrence-university-tpusa-chapter-roadblocks-wit/
https://www.lawrence.edu/sites/default/files/2025-02/CDS%202024-25_0.pdf
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/academic-freedom/2026/01/06/okla-instructor-dismissed-teaching-appeals-decision; also see https://www.professorwatchlist.org/searchbyschool
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