A C-SPAN clip from this week’s Young America’s Foundation conference came to my attention.  YAF VP Patrick Coyle gave a speech claiming, astonishingly, that progressives are intent on stifling the speech of conservatives, and he specifically mentioned Campus Progress.  If progressives, Coyle asked, are “so truly confident of their domination of the college campus, they would not try to stop speakers. They would say that we should go ahead and bring in their one conservative speaker… but they are so threatened.”  Coyle continued by noting that Campus Progress is seeking “to train a new generation of so-called progressive leaders. Each year they hold a conference much like this one, and they have also started a campus lecture program to bring in even more liberal speakers to college campuses.”  Coyle said that conservative students should go to progressive events and speak out. 

Patrick, get real.  Who is confident, and who is threatened? 

Campus Progress invites conservative speakers to speak at our events -- like TownHall’s Amanda Carpenter, who appeared at our annual conference this summer, and Trent Lott, who spoke at one of our campus events this year with Tom Daschle. We invite conservatives to be interviewed on our website, like David Horowitz.  Our interns cornered Ben Stein and convinced him to make a promo video for us.  All these conservatives were gracious and interested in genuine debate on important issues.  We admit young conservatives to our national conference as attendees, and we admit reporters from conservative publications like National Review to cover our conference.  We have repeatedly denounced actions by people on the progressive side to shout down conservative campus speakers, throw pies in their faces, or otherwise interfere with honest, open debate.

Meanwhile, what has YAF done?  The very YAF conference at which Patrick Coyle was speaking has repeatedly shut out Campus Progress-affiliated young people as attendees and journalists.  This year they refused to admit our intern Chenwei Zhang, even after Amanda Carpenter herself called YAF, cited her positive experience at the Campus Progress conference, and urged YAF to be open minded.  In 2006, when pressed after excluding a CampusProgress.org reporter, Julie Siegel, YAF said it would not admit a reporter from The Nation, whose contributors since 1865 have included Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, John Steinbeck, and Franklin Roosevelt.  YAF also ejected a reporter from the venerable Washington Monthly for the crime of also posting on the CampusProgress.org blog.

Patrick, do you actually believe what you are saying?  Have you checked in with your colleagues Mr. Custer, Mr. Mattera , and Mr. Robinson, who have repeatedly barred Campus Progress from the doors of your events?

Who is confident, and who is threatened?  Mr. Coyle also repeated the same tired argument conservatives have trotted out since we launched, that Campus Progress is unnecessary, because colleges themselves are the progressive organizing institutions: “What I think the leaders of Campus Progress are forgetting is that if you think about it, there is no reason for them to exist…. Typically, the counterpart to Young America's Foundation is usually the college itself.” 

We’ve addressed that argument before.  If there was no need for Campus Progress to exist, why do thousands of young people attend our events, participate in our campaigns, contribute to or visit our websites, apply for our action grants and publication grants?   We’re not necessary?  Yes, Patrick, it is the market working – supply and demand. 

Campus Progress and our partner organizations are growing and gaining influence because young people are smart, engaged, and progressive.  Working together – progressive groups and young people – we are getting things done: like making college more affordable, preventing efforts by conservatives to regulate the free speech of students and professors, moving campuses and communities toward clean energy, keeping the pressure on to halt genocide in Sudan, working for a stable outcome in Iraq, seeking to end government interference with freedom to marry.

YAF’s budget is seven times that of Campus Progress, but heaven knows how you are spending all that money.  My guess is big fees to your speakers and consultants.  If I were a donor or board member of YAF, I would start to wonder what the staff was actually getting done to make a difference.

Who is confident and who is threatened?  We invite conservative voices, your ideas, and your participation.  We want debate and dialogue. You lock the doors and keep us out, all the while muttering about George Soros and announcing, against all evidence, that Campus Progress has no reason to exist.  You aren’t fooling anyone.  And your movement is in shambles.