Matthew Giffin, reporter at The Tennessee Star and student at Middle Tennessee State University, joined Wednesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss a socialist group’s response to an event scheduled at East Tennessee State University (ETSU) next week featuring Kyle Rittenhouse.
Rittenhouse is scheduled to appear at ETSU on February 8 for a “Q&A and meet and greet.” The school’s chapter of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is organizing the event.
Among other demands, the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) chapter at ETSU has demanded the university make a specific policy prohibiting “hate speech” amid the event. However, an ETSU spokesperson has since confirmed that no such policy exists. The spokesperson clarified that the university maintains a “Campus Free Speech policy” that complies with Tennessee’s Campus Free Speech Protection Act.
During Wednesday’s interview with Leahy, Giffin said the socialist group claimed Rittenhouse is “linked with white supremacy.”
“So the Young Democratic Socialists of America at ETSU put out a statement about this event saying… a number of rather crazy things. First of all, the tale as old as time, a bunch of people calling themselves democrats crying racism that this is unjust for Kyle Rittenhouse, who is linked with white supremacy and all of this, is coming to ETSU during Black History Month, no less. Still yet to see any evidence that Kyle Rittenhouse is a white supremacist,” Giffin said.
The socialist group has since launched an online petition with a list of demands for the university amid the event next week, which Giffin said has garnered nearly 1,000 signatures.
“So, it appears that the event is still on. YDSA has published an online petition asking people to sign and the petition, of course, contains their list of ridiculous demands that ETSU change their policies, which if ETSU does change their policies the way YDSA wants them to, it appears that they would be violating state law but nonetheless, this petition has garnered within three or four days, almost a thousand signatures,” Giffin explained.
Giffin added that a number of individuals who signed the petition have expressed “very false impressions of Mr. Rittenhouse” regarding “who he is and what he stands for.”
Nonetheless, TPUSA, according to Giffin, will continue with the event and “not back down.”
“It appears that from what Turning Point has told me, they are just going to put on the event, not back down. And, you know theYoung Democratic Socialists have some counter protests scheduled, but that’s about it. They’re just going to scream about gun control and racism,” Giffin said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Kyle Rittenhouse” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
