‘Major win’ in culture war: U of New Mexico checked in ruling over ‘hefty’ fees for conservative speaker

Conservatives marked a “major win” in the culture war after an attempt at silencing voices on a college campus was met with a temporary injunction.

As the halls of higher education more openly embraced roles as leftist indoctrination facilities, claims of inclusion and diversity regularly disregarded those with opposing viewpoints. However, one bureaucratic effort to hinder conservative outreach at the University of New Mexico lost an initial challenge in court after a judge put a stop to adding a considerable fee for students to hear Riley Gaines speak.

“This is a major win in the battle to protect the First Amendment rights of college students, regardless of the viewpoint they express,” said Southeastern Legal Foundation Executive Director Kimberly Hermann in a release after a preliminary injunction was ordered by U.S. District Judge David Herrera Urias.

Representing the Leadership Institute, where the former NCAA swimmer turned activist was director of the Riley Gaines Center, as well as UNM’s branch of Turning Point USA, SLF filed a complaint in February alleging the school “engaged in viewpoint and content discrimination” by requiring security fees “based on the officials’ subjective assessment of the crowd’s potential reaction” to an event where Gaines would speak.

UNM’s TPUSA co-president, student Jonathan Gonzales indicated that there had been an initial $10,000 fee to the event that had been reduced prompting him to call out the “double standard” after “previously allowing a drag show to take place on campus with no security fee at all.”

Hermann argued that the policy is “so vague that the university can impose whatever fees it wants for any event,” or such was the case until Urias’ injunction determined the university could not collect fees from TPUSA until the matter came to its final resolution.

Because of the policy, the executive director argued, “Now, TPUSA is the only conservative student organization left at UNM. They basically ran every other conservative or libertarian student organization out of campus.”

“But it will mean that TPUSA can now have Riley come speak, and they can’t assess them any higher security fees than they would assess for any other event,” she went on.

“Sadly, we see this all the time,” said Gaines who has seen a number of her events canceled in the past in addition to being victimized by alphabet activists hellbent on seeing men compete against women and occupy their spaces.

“Conservative student voices are silenced on campus through excessive fees blamed on security, like in this case, or other red tape that makes it harder for conservative students to use their voice on campus,” she went on. “Colleges and universities should be a place of critical thinking where different ideas are welcomed and encouraged. They should not be a place of political discrimination and suppression of First Amendment rights, like in this case. We are very grateful that the court granted this injunction and saw the irreparable harm that would come if these high fees were applied to our event.”

While the final outcome of the lawsuit remains to be seen, UNM issued a statement to Fox News Digital that asserted, “UNM intends to comply with the court’s order, which was limited to speech events. While UNM is currently prohibited from charging fees for the security it provides for speech events, UNM remains committed to ensuring the safety of our campus and the safety of our students, faculty, staff, and visitors.”

Kevin Haggerty

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