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mahatmakanejeeves

(56,897 posts)
Thu Oct 13, 2016, 11:35 AM Oct 2016

Liberty University students protest association with Trump

The letter at Liberty University is covered in LBN, at Liberty U Students Break With Falwell Jr: ‘We Want Nothing To Do With’ Trump. The Washington Post article that was the basis for the Talking Points Memo article goes into a more general discussion of the reaction to Trump by Republican student groups at several Virginia universities.

Liberty University students protest association with Trump

By T. Rees Shapiro and Sarah Pulliam Bailey

October 13 at 1:25 AM

....
A statement issued late Wednesday by the group Liberty United Against Trump strongly rebuked the candidate as well as the school’s president, Jerry Falwell Jr., for defending Trump after he made extremely lewd comments about women in a 2005 video. The students wrote that Falwell’s support for Trump had cast a stain on the school’s reputation.
....

Dustin Wahl, a junior at Liberty, told The Post that he wrote the Liberty United Against Trump statement and said that more than 250 students, alumni and faculty have left signatures of support. Wahl said that some students have been frustrated with Falwell for a while and that the publication of Trump’s remarks from the 2005 video became a tipping point.

“Since the most recent sexual assault thing, we realized this is a time we can all get behind this and say ‘enough is enough.’ We do not support our president in his endorsement of Trump and we want the world to know because he’s giving Liberty University a bad name,” Wahl said. “It makes it seem like we’re about populist politics when we’re about the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is about gaining the integrity of our school. This is an effort to say Liberty is not Trump university.”

Other college Republican groups in Virginia have had to carefully examine Trump’s candidacy. ... Rachel Moss, a junior who is a member of the JMU college Republicans who also serves as communication director for the College Republican Federation of Virginia, said that “some students support Trump, some support Clinton, and others have recently withdrew support of Trump in light of the leaked audio tape.” ... Moss said that instead the College Republican Federation of Virginia is encouraging college students to focus on congressional races “in order to engage as many students in the campaigning process as possible, since multiple chapters have publicly not endorsed Trump. We wanted to be respectful towards those chapters and members who do not support Trump, as well those who do by encouraging members to campaign for their congressmen.”
....

T. Rees Shapiro is an education reporter.
https://twitter.com/TReesShapiro

Sarah Pulliam Bailey is a religion reporter, covering how faith intersects with politics, culture and...everything.
https://twitter.com/spulliam

Wow. Jerry Falwell Jr. is giving Liberty University a bad name.

Anyway, the article goes on to see how each school's group is dealing with Trump.
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