Anti-KKK Fliers Greet Amherst College Republicans Group

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2017/09/11/anti-kkk-fliers-greet-amherst-college-republicans-group/

Amherst College Republicans were greeted with anti-KKK fliers during their first meeting of the school year. (Facebook) Amherst College Republicans were greeted with anti-KKK fliers during their first meeting of the school year. (Facebook)

AMHERST — Members of a Republican student group at Amherst College recently found themselves on the receiving end of an explosive smear, as they found the outer windows of their meeting space plastered with fliers associating them with the Ku Klux Klan.

According to the Amherst College Republicans, the fliers, which proclaimed, “THIS IS OUR CAMPUS, NOT THE KLAN’S,” appeared in the middle of a club discussion during the group’s first meeting of the school year.

“While the fliers are related to another incident on campus that happened Sept. 5, the deliberate placement of the text facing the room where it was known an [Amherst College Republicans] meeting was occurring leads us to suppose this is an accusation of ACR being connected to the KKK,” the group posted on its Facebook page. “ACR would like to thank these students for enlightening us to the fact that by failing to adhere to leftist ideology, we fall into the category of white supremacists.

“But on a serious note, ACR condemns white supremacy, the KKK and related groups, etc., and we hope the Amherst community at large will not fall into making broad and grave generalizations about those who fall on the right of the political spectrum. Welcome to the 2017-18 school year!”

The Sept. 5 incident involved the discovery of a noose at the college’s football field.

Other students questioned whether ACR was directly singled out, as the leaflets were apparently distributed all over campus.

Jason Ross, state chairman of the Massachusetts Alliance of College Republicans, expressed his outrage in a prepared statement.

“This is absolutely absurd, bizarre, and outright insulting,” Ross stated. “Amherst College Republicans is one of the friendliest and accepting groups I have ever had the pleasure to work with, and there is absolutely no connection between College Republicans and the KKK.

“Shame on whoever did this in an attempt to falsely demonize our organization, and we will not let you silence us.”

The KKK was founded by Southern Democrats more than 100 years ago.

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