College conservatives say their numbers are growing. Or are they just getting louder? – By Mará Rose Williams (Kansas City Star) / Dec 1 2019
Conservative organizations claim to be growing in both numbers and visibility on college campuses across America. And, according to one of their leaders, they have a certain group to thank: liberals at the University of Missouri.
In particular, the black students whose race-related protests in 2015 forced out the campus chancellor and the system president and drew a critical national spotlight.
That got MU’s Young Americans for Freedom, a predominantly white conservative student group, to plan to make its own statement that drew its own national spotlight.
The group asked its national organization, Young America’s Foundation, to help bring conservative commentator Ben Shapiro to speak on the campus.
A clash of ideologies, they figured, would reverberate on campuses across the country, leading to increased membership for conservative groups.
“Conservative students needed to have a rallying point,” said Spencer Brown, spokesman for Young America’s Foundation. “That evening gave conservative students some place to go. We wanted to restore sanity to the campus. It was literally a perfect event. We were amazed to see how many showed up that evening to hear the speaker.”
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