UT student leaders urge suspension of campus conservative group

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A group of student leaders at the University of Texas at Austin are urging the university to disband a conservative student group after it held an anti-affirmative action bake sale last week, charging different prices depending on the race and gender of customers.

Seven student representatives brought the matter to the student government on Tuesday and said there's a petition with 800 signatures calling for the suspension of the UT chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas.

READ MORE: Controversial 'affirmative action bake sale' pops up at University of Texas again

UT spokesman J.B. Bird said Wednesday the university would not take action against the Young Conservatives club or its members following the bake sale, calling it protected speech.

“The right to freely express views is vital to the health of our university even if some find that expression offensive or disrespectful,” Bird said in a statement, adding that it is "rare" that the university suspends student organizations and that suspension would only occur if it violated UT rules.

The Young Conservatives club called affirmative action a “disastrous policy” at last week’s bake sale, which drew hundreds of protesters, the Associated Press reported.

At least one administrator criticized the event. Vice president for diversity and community engagement Gregory Vincent called the conservative group “deplorable” for using the “open forum” of the campus’s West Mall “to direct negative sentiment toward their peers.”

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“In seeking an audience for their ideas, the YCT resorted to exercising one of the university’s core values to the detriment of others,” he wrote.

The Young Conservatives of Texas chapter chairman Vidal Castaneda said in a letter to UT’s president that the chapter would take legal action should the university enact policies that infringe on the group’s rights.

“The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects more than just freedom of speech in the classroom. It protects more than just speech that is politically correct. It protects more than just speech that is approved by the UT administration,” Castaneda wrote. “The First Amendment gives all Americans, including students, the right to protest laws and policies they disagree with.”

Free speech questions aside, the debate shows that conversations on affirmative action at UT's campus are continuing after the Supreme Court ruled that its admissions practices are constitutional last summer.

UT considers race as a factor for roughly 25 percent of students who are not admitted under a state law that grants automatic admission to the top students of a high school's graduating class.