DePaul Conservative Alliance backstabbed by 'concerned students' organization

On Wednesday February 1st, the DePaul Conservative Alliance, along with SGA and the ‘concerned students’ at DePaul, held a town hall forum which revolved around the controversial affirmative action bake sale. The forum, as told to the DCA, was to consist of a debate around free speech, where a DCA student was to be presenting its right to have the bake sale, while the ‘concerned students’ presented their case as to why they have the right to override the Constitution and shut down the bake sale, because it offended some DePaul students.

Naturally, the DCA was extremely skeptical of the impartiality of the forum when we received word two days before the event that the ‘concerned students’ had reached out to three DePaul professors, Valerie Johnson, Howard Lindsey, and Sumi Chou to serve as “expert references” on the panel discussion. An hour before the event began I met with the ‘concerned students’ and expressed my discontent with them being on the panel for fear that they would impose their own ideology and bias against the DCA. The representatives for the ‘concerned students’ assured me, to my face, that these professors would be in the audience just providing their “expertise” on questions from the students.

Still cynical at the situation, the DCA went ahead with the forum after agreeing to the “experts” as being impartial and not on the panel. Yet the ‘concerned students’ backstabbed the DCA. Not only were they on the panel, but they also opened up the forum speaking out against our actions. The professors they had got were unanimously against the bake sale itself, and furthermore were in complete agreement that the discriminatory policy of affirmative action was justified. Valerie Johnson, from the Political Science Department, called me “troubled” and “ignorant” during this debacle. Most of the audience, with the exception of the DCA members, was extremely disrespectful throughout the forum, as they were laughing, bellowing, yelling, and making a mockery of the “intellectual” forum on free speech.

The forum was supposed to be on free speech, yet I guess Prof. Lindsey didn’t get the memo, or the ‘concerned students’ backstabbed us. His opening remarks, which the professors were not supposed to get anyways, were about how Martin Luther King Jr. wanted affirmative action, and how he is the product of such a disastrous policy, and why it’s good for America today. Prof. Johnson echoed the same illogical rhetoric. Professor Chou came wandering in late, which shows her dedication to the actual forum, and began to spout nonsense of how the bake sale is not considered “free speech.” It seems to me that Professor Chou would be better suited living under Stalin in the 1940s with her idea of censorship and total oppression of thought. But what can you expect from DePaul’s professors, being a liberal who is against free speech is a pre-requisite at this school. Maybe Chou will actually attempt to read the 1st Amendment before she adds her two cents of blatant inanity to the next forum.

The DCA was ambushed by the ‘concerned students’ “expert panel” and for that they should look at themselves as mere cowards. To be fair, we have already received an apology from one of the representatives of the ‘concerned students’ but we have yet to receive anything from the individual who actually reached out to these professors. The DCA will continue to spark political discourse on campus by encouraging free speech on campus. You can always count on us for leading the charge to reform this left-wing institution.