Emily Clemons

Managing Editor

Current and former members of the FSU College Republicans club have come forward with more allegations of misconduct by now suspended Chairman James Fletcher Dilmore.

They allege blatant sexist, misogynistic, racist and xenophobic speech in meetings; bullying, both at club events and on social media; abuses of power and violations of the club’s constitution; and verbal and physical harassment.

The former member and e-board member say Dilmore made fun of a club member’s weight, frequently used profanity at meetings, directed misogynistic questions at a female club candidate and made racist and xenophobic remarks during a discussion of Muslims and Syrian refugees.

These allegations follow the leak of an internal memo by the Florida Federation of College Republicans sent to the College Republicans at FSU that formally suspended both Dilmore and Ben Hodes, the club’s now treasurer, accused of mishandling approximately $16,000 and sexual harassment.

The current and former members, who asked to remain anonymous for fear to reprisals, describe a culture of fear within the club perpetuated by a small but vocal minority who bullied its way into power and took the rhetoric of then Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as a cue for their actions.

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Dilmore as Vice Chair

According to one former club member, the first signs of trouble appeared as early as fall 2015, when Dilmore was just beginning his tenure as vice chair under chairman Jared Honts.

At the first club meeting of the school year, Dilmore split the room in half, with the men standing on one side and the women on the other.

“He pointed out the ratio of guys to girls and said that we needed to, like, talk about how many beautiful women there are and just like talked about how gorgeous the girls were in the room,” she said. “He was like, ‘So, guys, you’ve got to come back to the meetings because look at all these girls we have.’”

While the former member recalls the discomfort and offense felt by the women of the group, a former executive board member has a different perspective. He says the goal was to “promote equal involvement of both genders... not a malicious intent.”

According to the former e-board member, the club’s leadership planned the activity in an effort to highlight the lack of women in the room and encourage more equal participation between the sexes. There were “like three times as many” men as women, and the leadership saw the gender disparity as a problem for the club.

He concedes, however, that Dilmore did make comments about the women’s appearance.

“He did make comments about like the beautiful women, but that’s like a comment about like, ‘Republican women are beautiful,’ which is something he said at all sorts of events,” he said.

That controversial activity would not be the only conflict between Dilmore and the E-Board, however. The former e-board member also described working with Dilmore to be “just troubling at times.”

The tension was so palpable that even FSU College Democrats President Mikayla Withers noticed. When the College Democrats hosted a tri-partisan debate alongside the College Republicans and Libertarians on Feb. 23, 2016, Withers says Dilmore sat in the audience with other general body members and shouted down to those debating on stage.

Dilmore was so disruptive, she said, that former chairman Honts asked him to leave.

When asked for comment, Honts only said, “I hope the truth comes out about whatever is going on, and if there’s anything that needs to happen I trust that the proper channels will be followed and FSU will do what’s right.”

By the time elections came around in April 2016, meeting attendance had dropped and the club was shrinking rapidly. Members came out in full force, however, to vote against Dilmore and ensure he did not become club chairman.

Their lack of meeting attendance worked against them, however. When many of them came to vote, Dilmore invoked the club’s constitution to prevent them from voting. He said they did not have active member status and, therefore, were ineligible to participate in the election.

According to Article VIII, Section 13 of the club’s constitution, “Members are eligible to vote in E-Board elections if they are personally present on Election Day and are considered an active member.” Active membership is defined in Article XI, Section 4 as “an enrolled FSU student and completion of the proper forms. To maintain active member status, students must attend more than half of all regularly scheduled general body meetings for the semester up to that point.”

“It’s just sad,” the former member said, “because there were so many of us who wanted to save the club from falling into their hands.”

A shift in the wind

When Dilmore became chairman, things began to change. The club’s constitution stipulates that E-Board meetings are to be open to the general body. The former E-board member said E-Board meetings were traditionally open to the club members, and the board made sure the meeting times, dates and locations were publicized.

Not so under Dilmore.

A club member alleges that posts inquiring about the details of e-board meetings were systematically deleted from the club’s Facebook group. When the member attempted to share the event page for a federation meeting, those posts were deleted as well. Eventually, the member was blocked from the Facebook group.

Once he became chairman, Dilmore also heightened the harassment, extending it to those outside the club as well.

Withers experienced it firsthand. She alleges Dilmore and some of his friends stopped by the College Democrats’ first general body meetings of fall 2016.

“They walked around the perimeter of the outside of the room, stood near the door and, like, didn’t look at us, and then just looked at us for five seconds and left and never said a word,” Withers said.

She believes he was trying to intimidate them.

Withers and the College Democrats also experienced harassment on Twitter. The College Republicans account, run by Dilmore, would tweet insults and mocking jokes at them.

The College Republicans invited the College Democrats to debate, but Withers says they turned them down.

“We just didn’t feel comfortable with Fletcher as president getting involved in that from the previous debate experience we had had with him,” she said. “We could only imagine what that would be like with him as president.”

Moving forward

The club will be rebuilt under the guidance of Faculty Adviser Sam Staley and Vice Chair Landon Schneider as the federation conducts its investigation. FSU’s Title IX office will also be conducting an investigation, as the allegations fall under the FSU Sexual Misconduct Policy, Interim Title IX Director Aishah Casseus said in an email to the FSView.

Staley notes his intention to get the club “back on the right track,” and help the students rebuild the club to ensure it fulfills its charter and constitutional responsibilities.

“Four years ago this was an amazing organization on campus,” Staley said. “This is not representative of the CRs I know. I, frankly, would not be the faculty advisor if these allegations were true as part of the culture of the organization, because that’s not the way I operate, and that’s not the way I run my organizations, and that’s certainly not the way I run my classroom.”