Socialist group suggests conservative peer belongs in Gulag

A socialist student group at Kent State University recently suggested that a conservative student belongs in a Soviet prison camp for her stance on free speech.

[RELATED: Republican Columbia student targeted by Antifa flyer]

The comment was made after Leandra Westbrook, vice president of the school’s Turning Point USA chapter, defended her organization from a petition designed to stifle free speech.

“Silencing speech is fascism,” she tweeted. “The petition is useless. We aren’t going anywhere.”

The Kent State Socialist Collective (KSSC), a student organization that was formed in 2013, responded to Westbrook by tweeting a map of the Soviet Gulag system and telling her that “there's one place you might be going…”

According to the group’s Facebook page, the organization “exists to facilitate a sense of understanding and community between those who are interested in socialism and those who are socialists.”

“We stand on the side of the working class, the oppressed, the exploited, and anyone who wishes to create a better world based upon equality, justice, and peace,” the group’s mission statement reads. “The KSSC is a coalition of ideologically diverse students and community members united by a desire to advance the idea of a world beyond capitalism.”

[RELATED: Student group calls for ‘extermination’ of capitalists]

“I think the gulag tweet is absurd,” Westbrook said in a statement to Campus Reform. “The far left wants to combat free speech with violence, and not more speech.

“At a recent Free Speech panel on campus, left wing groups were calling for punching nazis, pouring hot soup on conservatives, and attacking Trump supporters,” she alleged, noting that conservative groups would face enormous backlash if they were the ones calling for violence.

[RELATED: UGA socialist group disbands amid outrage over anti-GOP tweet]

The Kent State Socialist Collective did not immediately respond to Campus Reform’s request for comment, but subsequently tweeted that they are “against gulags (and all prisons/forced labor).”

“We're also generally in favor of silly jokes,” they added.

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