University president condemns TPUSA chapter for showing conservative film

Central Connecticut State University’s (CCSU) chapter of Turning Point USA was recently called out in an email from the university’s president for a watch party it hosted showing Matt Walsh’s documentary “What Is a Woman?”

In the November 16 email obtained by Campus Reform, President Zulma Toro said that “CCSU does not support the transphobic rhetoric espoused in the film.” 

She also included her personal assessment of the film, labeling it as “odious.”

Despite this, Toro said in the email that the school would not ban the event, noting that “we cannot ban events based on the offensive or hateful ideas they embrace.”

[RELATED: Students demand university monitor TPUSA chapter for ‘disinformation’]

President Toro’s message was not welcomed by all on campus, however. Jay Bergman, professor of history and faculty advisor to the school’s chapter of TPUSA, took particular exception to the message.

Bergman issued an email of his own, also obtained by Campus Reform, saying, “It is not the responsibility of a university president to condemn as bigots students whom she almost surely does not know and with whom she has never discussed their views on transgenderism, or on any other political issue.”

He goes on to voice his concerns about the possible implications of the President’s email, asserting that “[i]t is far from inconceivable that faculty emboldened by President Toro’s condemnation of the CCSU TPUSA students will lower their grades or even belittle them publicly in class.”

[RELATED: BREAKING: Anti-TPUSA group vandalizes chapter flyers, calls conservatives ‘fascists’]

Though the movie played as planned, protestors gathered on campus in response.

This may have been encouraged by President Toro’s email, which closed with, “The best way to combat opinions with which we do not agree or find offensive, is not by suppression, but by exercising our right of free speech and peaceful expression.”

Campus Reform previously reported on widespread demands from students for CCSU to monitor the TPUSA chapter, and revoke its eligibility to receive university funding. 

President Toro, Jay Bergman, and Central Connecticut State University have been contacted for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.

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