Cal State Fullerton Students for Quality Education (SQE) are calling for a “hate Speech” investigation into an Instagram parody allegedly mocking SQE, “Latinx” students, and Cinco de Mayo, according to a report in the Daily Titan. In a bold move, College Republicans President Chris Boyle acknowledged his members are behind the parody account @RealSQE but offered no apologies.

The alleged “hate speech” centers around a Cinco de Mayo Instagram message making fun of the SQE, calling the group “Students for Quesadillas and Enchiladas,” and instructs students to stop by its fundraising event on May 5 at the Baja Fresh in the Titan Student Union and say, “I love Hispanics,” and 10 percent of the purchase will go toward “Real SQE club events.”

“I know the members who are doing it,” Boyle stated. “I am not going to tell them to stop. It is not my place to censor my members’ speech. They are not doing anything that is abusive or hateful or anything like that. It is a parody account.”

The parody account on Instagram for the CSUF Real SQE, states, “We are the Cal State Fullerton chapter of Real SQE and we expose leftist propaganda on campus.”

SQE faculty advisor and Senate member Jon Bruschke, Ph.D. was not amused and quickly drafted and furnished an “emergency resolution” denouncing the “hate speech” to the Academic Senate and is calling for an investigation.

“The flyer is clearly designed for the racial mockery of Latinx students and groups,” Bruschke said. “Whoever wrote that post was trying to say something offensive and intimidating, and it seems to me that the Senate used its voice to express its objection to that content to counter hateful speech with taking the statement that ‘we find this to be uncivil and contrary to our campus values.’”

SQE posted a copy of the Instagram parody on its site and stated, “It’s still vital to recognize how disgustingly racist and dehumanizing this post is. It not only mocks and exploits Chicanx folx and their history/culture, it also minimizes their identities to just food, making it something to capitalize off of, as if the community does not face that enough on Cinco de Mayo and every day in our society.”

Boyle isn’t having any of it and told the Daily Titan this is “typical behavior” of SQE to accuse the College Republicans of being racists.

“We’ve never said or done anything racist. It would be absurd for us to be a racist organization,” Boyle said. “Half of my executive board is Latino. I’m married to a foreigner.”

“I think parody is a time-honored means of both comedy and political commentary,” Boyle added, comparing the Instagram account to the mocking of Donald Trump on “Saturday Night Live.”

The fake SQE account had previously been brought to Bruschke’s attention. At that time he contacted College Republicans club advisor, Janet Eyring, Ph.D., who informed him the club was not sponsoring the account, but individual club members may be doing it on their own.

“I did not see or know about any advertisement for a fake Cinco de Mayo event at Baja Fresh and, of course, would not endorse any club member engaging in that type of activity,” Eyring wrote in an email to the Daily Titan.

SQE member Liz Sanchez alleged Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) President Aaron Van Meter Jones, along with others who hold positions on the CSUF College Republicans club executive board, are the main administrators for the fake account.

“It is not okay to push someone who has never had full rights or full equity, communities that have been constantly marginalized,” Sanchez said. “It is not okay to make fun of them and to push them back into the dark.”

Courtesy of the SQE Facebook page…

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“Liz Sanchex [sic] is free to make any allegations she wants. I don’t have time for this,” Jones stated in a text message. “This seems to be a beef between two groups, neither of which have any official connection to this campus. I am not sure how my officially sanctioned club YAL has anything to do with this.”