Vanguard University bans TPUSA chapter under new ‘apolitical’ club policy
The Christian university bans student organizations that are political, ideological, and religious while maintaining several identity-based groups
Despite the TPUSA chapter being an established organization on campus since 2023, student leaders say the new policy was used to block the chapter from rechartering this year.
The two-year-old Turning Point USA (TPUSA) chapter at Vanguard University has been disbanded under a newly implemented university policy that prohibits clubs with political, ideological, and religious orientations, according to the club’s chapter president.
The private California Christian school updated its 2025-26 student handbook to state that groups “organized around religiously, politically, or ideologically driven social issues … will not be approved as student clubs or organizations.”
Despite the TPUSA chapter being an established organization on campus since 2023, student leaders say the new policy was used to block the chapter from rechartering this year.
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Chapter president Sadie Burnett said that administrators refused to reapprove TPUSA for the 2025 school year, after four months of meetings and appeals.
“My TPUSA chapter can no longer book rooms for meetings, receive university funding, host events, rush at club rush, or table on campus,” Burnett wrote in a Substack post.
Burnett told Campus Reform she believes the new policy is “detrimental” to students and overall campus culture.
“Universities are championed as centers to exchange ideas and engage in political discourse. If that sentiment is taken away, what is left to celebrate? Given the anti-conservative culture on college campuses across the nation, this approach is dangerous and breeds violence. Politics cannot be taboo,” she told Campus Reform.
According to Burnett, when she asked university officials to explain why TPUSA was banned while multiple racial, culture, and identity-based clubs were allowed to remain recognized, the administrators failed to provide formal definitions for the terms in the student handbook.
“There was no political or ideological criteria that TPUSA fit into that the racial and cultural clubs did not,” she writes.
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TPUSA is not the only conservative organization to be affected by this new policy.
As reported by Fox News on Wednesday, Vanguard also denied a Students for Life chapter on the basis that its national organization “engages in political advocacy,” and therefore does not qualify for recognition under the new policy.
In response to backlash over its handling of the pro-life club, the university released a statement on Thursday reaffirming its commitment to protecting life and explaining its rationale for rejecting the Students for Life chapter. Notably, the statement made no mention of TPUSA.
The statement announces an alternative club, established by Vanguard, that focuses primarily on service rather than advocacy.
”We are thrilled that the VU Lions Love Life Club has been established as a result,” the university writes.
“I pray that the university takes time to reconsider [its] stance to go apolitical regarding student organizations,” Burnett told Campus Reform. “Unfortunately, the school has prioritized D.E.I. Initiatives above all else and has fallen to secular pressure.”
“This is bigger than the denial of my TPUSA chapter,” she added. “The culture war is no longer after Christian universities, it’s inside the walls.”
Campus Reform has reached out to Vanguard University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
