Conservative group responds forcefully to prof who called it 'racist'

A professor at Montana Technological University reacted to the formation of a new conservative student organization on his campus by calling the group “racist.”

“This group is known for affiliating with racist and neo-Nazi and other alt-right groups,” Professor of Science and Technology Studies Pat Munday told KXLF-TV in February.

”We don’t want to suppress free speech. We don’t want to in any way try to tell students what clubs they can or can’t have but we do want to promote awareness that this is a very dangerous road to go down,” Munday added.

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TPUSA responded to the professor’s public statement, which it called “defamatory.” 

”The quote by Professor Pat Munday is both defamatory and wildly inaccurate. TPUSA is a mainstream conservative organization that encourages people of all races and backgrounds to participate. TPUSA even hosts annual events and gatherings catering to minority communities too often underrepresented in the political arena, including a Black Leadership Summit, a Latino Leadership Summit, a Jewish Leadership Summit, among many other uplifting and positive events. Professor Munday is either the victim of misinformation and should do some more research, or willfully ignorant, either way he owes the amazing student leaders at TPUSA Montana Tech an immediate apology,” a statement provided to KXLF-TV read. 

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Another Montana Tech professor, English and History Professor Henry Gonshak, reacted to Montana lawmakers’ efforts to legalize concealed carry of firearms on the state’s college campuses, on which Campus Reform previously reported. 

Gonshak told KXLF that allowing students to bring guns on campus is “extremely dangerous” and that “people are going to die” because of it.

Colleges have tried to stop the approval of a TPUSA chapter before. On February 2, Campus Reform reported on the story of a TPUSA chapter at Illinois Tech that was no more than an idea before it was cancelled by students who called it a “hate group.”

Montana Tech’s Executive Director of Marketing and Communications Amanda Badovinac told Campus Reform that the comments made by Munday and Gonshak were “personal comments and not those of the university.” 

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