A student at a Christian university in California said her Turning Point USA chapter was barred from being recognized as an official chapter, which the school explained is its official policy for “political advocacy initiatives.”
Sadie Burnett is in her third year at Vanguard University, a small private school in Costa Mesa, California. She is the president of the school’s Turning Point USA chapter, which is presently unrecognized by the school.
“Since 2023, we’ve had a lively and very active presence on campus,” Burnett told Fox News Digital. “We’ve hosted several events, we were able to rush at club rush. We had students very enthusiastic about our presence being there. It was even something that made us stand out as a Christian university, was the fact that Turning Point was practiced, and it was not only practiced, but it was also celebrated.”
However, the school made an official decision to stop accepting political clubs, and instead funnel any political activism or events through a process that involves the administration.
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“We received an email over the summer stating that the school was taking a new direction with student organizations,” Burnett said. “They’re going completely apolitical, giving this idea that Christians do not necessarily belong in politics, which is interesting because they do have a political science department, which I’m a part of.”
Burnett said that she has met with the school administration, trying to come to an arrangement that would allow Turning Point to operate. She said she’s been shut down repeatedly.
The group is able to gather on campus, but only outside, and not in any official capacity as a conservative group.
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“We’re not ‘conservative,’ we’re just students hanging out,” Burnett explained, adding that some chapter members feel unsafe being out in the open given the “anti-conservative” sentiments on campus and online.
Registered student organizations can host events on campus, along with a litany of other privileges not granted to unaffiliated groups.
“The difference between being an unaffiliated chapter versus being a registered student organization is that chapters or organizations that are registered, they can book rooms for meetings well in advance to make sure that they have a space to speak, they have a space to host events,” Burnett said. “They’re allowed to receive university funding. They can rush at club rush and interact with students, interact with new-coming students that are coming in [and] prospective students.”
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Burnett said that the chapter can’t host tabling events, where other students can approach and ask them questions, which she defines as “one of the heart and cores to Turning Point” as a whole. After all, she said, colleges used to be known as places where students were encouraged to freely debate ideas.
“If I wanted to go to a college or a university that was anti-conservative, but at least they let me speak, I would have absolutely chosen to go there,” she said. “So I feel like I got the rug pulled out from under me from the decision that I chose to come to this school.”
Most importantly, Burnett said, Christians should not be sidelined from political debate.
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“Christians have a place in politics, and not only a place, we have a profound voice, the most profound voice in politics. We have every right to assert ourselves, to make claims, and it’s so disappointing to see a Christian university push this idea that Christians should not speak and that politics are taboo,” she said.
Amanda Lebrecht, Vanguard University’s vice president for student development, said that in 2023, when the Turning Point chapter was in the process of applying to become a registered student group, the school was already moving away from political clubs.
“We were in the process then of disbanding our inter-club council and moving towards what we now have fully established, which is our student clubs and organization model,” she told Fox News Digital.
“This fall, it was established that university policy does not permit campus clubs affiliated with political advocacy initiatives,” she said, adding that the decision is part of an effort to advance “our educational mission within the context of our small Christian community.”
In lieu of political clubs, students at Vanguard are encouraged to work with the university administration on broader initiatives like last year’s “Year of Civility,” which Lebrecht described as “co-curricular programming.” She said the school hosted near-daily events from the beginning of the 2024-2025 academic year up until the November election, meant to meet the school’s mission of “lead[ing] a Christ-centered life of leadership and service.”
This year’s theme is “Courageous Conversations,” which, with the help of students, brought pro-life activist Lila Rose of Live Action to campus.
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“So, we’ve been meeting with these students frequently to help them reach their goals, but in a way that works with serving our community, and we’ve provided an opportunity that still exists for them to have an academic social club through the history [and] poli-sci department,” Lebrecht said.
To Burnett’s point about the safety of conservative students on campus, Lebrecht said the students have direct access to the school’s head of campus safety, and that, uniquely, the school shares its campus with the Costa Mesa Police Department, along with the city’s fire department.
“We will continue to engage these students, and we will continue to try to find a way to help them meet their goals and have it work within the Vanguard community,” Lebrecht said.
Lebrecht said that the president of the university prefers not to have various political clubs on campus, politically left or right leaning, but instead “seeks to channel their voice … in a different way, not silence them.”
Vanguard does allow what it calls “cultural and heritage clubs,” including a Black Student Union, which Lebrecht said “exist to promote belonging and connection amongst students,” are open to all students and have been active on campus for more than 10 years.
