SANTA CLARA — A conservative student organization, fighting for a toe-hold of official recognition in the liberal Bay Area, scored a victory at Santa Clara University where a vice provost overturned a student senate decision and granted a charter to Turning Point USA.

In an unprecedented move, Vice Provost of Student Life Jeanne Rosenberger announced late Friday that the group — which espouses “fiscal responsibility, free markets and limited government” — qualifies for Registered Student Organization status. That makes the group the first chapter in Northern California to get such recognition.

“We feel really good about this,” said SCU student Caleb Alleva, who led the efforts to form the club. “They rejected us based on illogical reasoning, trying to lump us together with the national chapter’s interactions. You can’t base our actions off other people — you can’t deny someone because of something they might do.”

Matt Lamb, a national director with the group, said he was “really proud” of Alleva and hopes to see “four, five, six more clubs up in the area pretty soon.”

Other chapters of the group have caught flak from the left for bringing firebrand speaker Milo Yiannopoulos to campuses in other states. Yiannopoulos is a defender of the alt-right and a former Breitbart editor who resigned last month when a video surfaced of him light-heartedly condoning sexual relations with children as young as 13.

Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk is a frequent critic of liberal policies, often using social media to attack socialism and its adherents. In overturning the decision, Rosenberger disagreed with students who questioned the appropriateness of Turning Point, saying her decision is “consistent with our treatment” of other student groups and that the school can’t hold the local chapter responsible for what Turning Point has done elsewhere.

However, Neil Datar, chair of the student senate at the university, said Rosenberger’s action has an undermining impact on the established system.

“The student body elects its student senate and appoints its judicial branch for the purpose of making difficult decisions like these,” Datar said. “And the student body’s faith is premised on our decision having legitimacy.”

The decision didn’t sit well with Jay Bassett, an SCU student and social justice advocate who organized students at the last minute to oppose the club when the matter came up in early February. They went before the student senate with their concerns, and though Bassett didn’t think the matter was argued appropriately, Bassett believed the governing body came to the correct conclusion to bar the club.

Friday’s decision — which cannot be contested — renewed Bassett’s concerns that the club leans more extreme than they let on.

“Everybody was saying, that if they actually want to do the stuff they say they should just form an economic conservatives club,” Bassett said. “But they didn’t want to turn down resources from Turning Point.”

Alleva said only a small group of students don’t want Turning Point on campus, but they “made their voices very loud.”

“Some of them are saying we’re alt-right, which is nonsense,” Alleva said. “I’m reaching out to some of those groups that might not want us on campus to clear the air, to find a way we can all be positive.”

Datar said he believes the university was “getting a unique level of pressure” in the form of a “misinformation campaign by Turning Point national” that resulted in one-sided and misleading news reports about the group being denied its right to free speech.

SCU issued a statement Sunday that said publicity did not play a role in the decision, which was based on the university’s “institutional values, principles and policies.”

It added that other Jesuit institutions including Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., and Georgetown in Washington D.C. have recently approved Turning Point chapters.

In a letter to faculty, Provost Dennis Jacobs said he understands and appreciates that community members “may choose to challenge vigorously the core tenets embraced by Turning Point USA.

“But I believe that Santa Clara University would be less of a university if we became intellectually intolerant and systematically excluded persons who fundamentally disagreed with the majority.”