NYU College Republicans Change Course With Under the Radar Semester

Following a year filled with controversy, NYU College Republicans have shifted their focus.

Following a controversy-filled 2016-17 school year, NYU College Republicans will cap off a comparatively uneventful fall at their final event of the semester tonight.

In September 2016, shortly after internal discord over then-Republican nominee Trump, the group’s then-president Eli Nachmany stepped down from his post just weeks into the semester. He claimed his decision was because of a recent promotion on the Trump campaign. In October, the group’s Milo Yiannopoulos event was canceled by the university due to “security concerns.” And in February, they invited Vice Media co-founder turned right-wing commentator and “Proud Boy” Gavin McInnes, which sparked demonstrations outside Kimmel upon his entrance. After heading upstairs, McInnes was drowned out throughout the talk and called an administrator a “dumb liberal asshole.”

The headache-inducing incidents didn’t stop. Just over a month later, the College Republicans hosted Lucian Wintrich, a White House “reporter” for Gateway Pundit — an alt-right conspiratorial website — to speak. Wintrich ranted about orgies, his take on contemporary campus life, the origins of the so-called “social justice warrior” movement (which he claimed was invented by Jewish women at liberal arts colleges) while drinking from a flask. His talk caused the College Republicans to issue an apology for his behavior the next day.

But this fall, the group has stayed out of the limelight. They have mostly hosted and co-sponsored subdued events and have opted not to invite people who are essentially professional right-wing entertainers. The comparatively sober speaker lineup included former NYU College Republican president and current Manhattan GOP chairwoman Andrea Catsimatidis, low-level former Trump operative Jo Ann Poly-Calvo and former New York City Republican mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis. On Tuesday, the group hosted National Review editor Charles C.W. Cooke; Daily Caller reporter Alex Pfeiffer will speak tonight.

The most noteworthy moments involving College Republicans have come in the aftermath of their decisions to exercise caution in selecting speakers.

In September, College Republicans were contacted by a group called the Propertarian Institute that wanted to host a panel about “Western culture,” according to the club’s vice president Xavier Malaussena. But, he explained in a statement to NYU Local, the speakers the Propertarian Institute wanted to bring “raised serious red flags,” so they declined their offer. Nevertheless, the Propertarian Institute proceeded to book a room in Kimmel under a different name and hosted an event there, according to Washington Square News. Some that attended the group spread flyers in Kimmel promoting white supremacist group Identity Evropa, the NYU Department of Public Safety found.

“So our vetting is better than NYU’s,” Malaussena wrote.

In October, College Republicans reneged on an informal agreement to host conservative opinion writer James Merse due to his affiliation with anti-Muslim group ACT for America. Right-leaning outlets such as Fox News and Daily Caller reported on the canceled event, depicting the situation as one where NYU College Republicans had cowered in the face of potential hostility from the left. “NYU College Republicans Fold To Pressure, Cancel Conservative Speaker” a melodramatic Daily Caller headline read.

In turn, the College Republicans wrote a scathing, informal Facebook post in which they labeled Merse a “whiny cuck” in response to what they regarded as an overreaction to the cancellation. The statement seemed to do the trick. “No hard feelings @NYUCR,” Merse then tweeted. “I’m starting to understand what you’re up against. I’m disappointed, but it’s all good. Let’s move on.”

College Republicans leadership’s new habit of erring on the side of caution has been deliberate.

“I think going forward, we’re going to focus on free speech, but I want speakers who — instead of being provocateurs, instead of speakers who just want to put on a show, we’d rather have speakers of substance,” Elena Hatib, the club’s president, told BuzzFeed News in October.

Before the club’s meeting Tuesday, Hatib reiterated the strategy she has adopted in recent months.

“It’s not even about causing controversy,” she said. “It’s more about having speakers that are a little bit more of substance. Sometimes, those people can be controversial but I think we’re trying to stay away from the provocateurs.”

While their meetings have not been the target of protests, nor have there been calls for the university to shut them down entirely, College Republicans have not gone into hiding. In fact, slightly more students on average have turned out for meetings compared to last spring, according to the club’s attendance records.

Sophomore College Republican Ajay Iyer, for example, welcomes the change.

“It’s been quieter than last semester, I think,” he told Local in an interview. “We haven’t had a Gavin McInnes or Lucian Wintrich. I think we’ve had a lot of higher quality speakers.”

“It’s been a lot more low-key than last semester, especially,” said sophomore Bennett Kauffman, the club’s secretary. “I think we tried to refocus on more qualified people that have something interesting and something worthwhile to offer instead of trying to cause controversy.”

Asked which path he preferred, Kauffman said that though he sometimes misses causing a bit of trouble, courting outrage is “not really a sustainable thing to do long-term.”

He added, “We’re accomplishing more in terms of constructive political debate.”

Iyer, for his part, also prefers this semester’s approach.

“Certainly it’s fun being a bit edgy,” he said, “but it wasn’t a good experience to be yelled at or just have a low-quality speaker who is there to own libs, I guess.”

Malaussena, however, believes the club should invite both substantive, policy-focused types and own-the-libs figures. He said there is a faction that “wants to see fireworks” and others that prefer “calmer events.”

Malaussena explained that, due to the dearth of conservative students at NYU, the club is best-off adopting a “big tent” mentality.

“That’s something that our members debate between themselves. I don’t think there is one clear answer to that,” he said. “I’m fine with a bit of controversy every now and then.”