Turning Point USA, the nonprofit that promotes conservative political ideology on college campuses, intends to create an official SAC chapter, according to officials in SAC’s Office of Student Life.
TPUSA, which is not a registered student organization (RSO) on campus, set up a table in SAC’s mall area Wednesday, seeking to recruit members and promote their organization. SAC Director of Student Life Dr. Jacob Aidan Martinez told the Sundial in an email that Turning Point USA has not filed an RSO application yet, but he believes students intend to create a chapter.
“They have asked some faculty to serve as their faculty/staff advisor, but as far as we know, no one has agreed to do it,” Martinez wrote.
One of the requirements to establish an official student club, or RSO, at SAC is to have a faculty or staff advisor.
“The students who have expressed interest have not told us that they intend to create the club, but we have heard from other sources that their intention is to form officially sometime in the near future,” Martinez wrote.
Turning Point’s founder, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated Sept. 10 while addressing an audience on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. The organization’s website says its mission is to “identify, educate, train and organize students to promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets and limited government.”
Two of the three Turning Point members passing out literature and engaging with passing students identified themselves as SAC students, but all three members asked not to be identified by name and chose not to speak with Sundial staffers.
The members engaged in discussions and debated with some students with opposing viewpoints. They also urged students to respond to an informal poll on a whiteboard that asked, “Should immigration laws be stricter?”
Pre-Nursing major Ethan Torres said he and his brother talked to the Turning Point members about upcoming events and said they were informative.
“They want a sense of wanting to grow — finding hope from one another,” Nathaniel Torres, a student studying architecture, said. “They’re open to what other people have in their minds.”
Helix Mason, a biology and engineering student, who opposes Turning Point’s political ideals, engaged the members in debate.
“I believe in reform and having a way of meeting in a middle ground that can make everyone happy,” Mason told the Sundial. “Because ultimately as citizens — especially as college students — where we meet people who come from different backgrounds is just meeting in the middle.”
Alamo Colleges District’s policy on “Protected Expression” says “persons other than members of the college community may engage in expressive activity” in the outdoor area designated as a “public forum” at SAC.
SAC’s mall area — between Loftin Student Center and the Chemistry and Geology building — is designated as SAC’s public forum area. Such designated spaces are often called “free speech zones.” They are supposed to ensure higher learning institutions allow “speech or expressive conduct” that is protected and guaranteed by state and federal laws, but the legal concept can be controversial.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonprofit that defends “fundamental rights on college campuses,” has sponsored and litigated several successful lawsuits against free speech zones nationwide.
“At public universities, free speech zones are often in tension with the First Amendment,” a blog post on FIRE’s website says. “As government actors, public colleges may lawfully impose reasonable ‘time, place, and manner’ regulations on campus expressive activity like speeches, protests, or literature distribution.”
Existing legal precedents have established that such regulations must be viewpoint- and content-neutral; they must be narrowly tailored in service of a significant governmental interest; and they must leave open ample alternative channels for expressive activity.
Forms of speech that are not protected “expressive activities” on campus, according to Texas law, are commercial speech, defamation, unlawful harassment, incitement to imminent unlawful activity, obscenity, threats to engage in unlawful activity and antisemitic speech or actions.
In March 2024, Alamo Colleges District officials removed Dr. Naydeen González-De Jesús from her position as president of San Antonio College for preventing students and educators from holding a “Teach-In for Palestine” event on campus in October 2023. FIRE said González-De Jesús’ intervention was “the definition of a chilling effect” on free speech.
