Students at McMaster University have stripped a club of its official status after concerns about racist affiliations were raised.

The Student Representative Assembly voted unanimously to "de-ratify" the Dominion Society's status during an emergency meeting Tuesday.

"This is because the club did not disclose alleged ties to external groups and people tied to said external groups had allegedly expressed white supremacist beliefs," Joshua Marando, president of the McMaster Students Union, wrote in an email Thursday.

"It is important to ensure all clubs are truthful throughout the application process, and that we ensure that discriminatory or xenophobic attitudes have no place in the MSU clubs system or in campus discourse."

A club representative couldn't immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

Marando flagged the issue late last month after the representative assembly ratified the Dominion Society along with roughly 325 clubs for the 2019/20 school year. A social media post drawing connections between the Dominion Society and people espousing racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric helped spark a second look at the club.

The Dominion Club had originally applied for status — which would allow it to access funding — as the Macdonald Society, named after Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A.

It would fill a void of "clubs aimed to address the promotion of Canadian culture, traditions and heritage" and "more conventional topics such as Canadian history, language, religion and geography," the application read.

In a response to an assembly representative, the applicant denied connections to other Macdonald-themed clubs, "especially extremist groups."

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