WATCH: Student fights to create conservative group on campus

Campus Reform Reporter Alexa Schwerha spoke with Eckerd College student Tony Salvatori about his fight to start a College Republicans group on his Florida campus.

Eckerd College is located in Saint Petersburg, Florida.

The group originally began as a social media account managed by Salvatori. 

According to Salvatori, his attempt to organize a conservative group was met by immediate backlash from campus leftists. He recounted being the brunt of lies and threats.

”I don’t think what they realize is that the administration ran handbook checks, Title IX checks, and a couple other things on all of my Instagram posts and everything that I’ve done and they couldn’t find any violations there,” he said.

After, Salvatori said the school had to get involved to persuade the Student Government to approve the club as a registered student organization.

”College Republicans is officially a club, and will begin operations next year,” the group announced on Instagram. In the meantime, it will rebrand under a new account.

Salvatori told Campus Reform that it is important to have a conservative group on campus because it “helps people realize they aren’t alone.”

”It helps people stay away from the indoctrination. It helps them resist the indoctrination, and it helps to get people who are already on the left, it helps them to either have those conversations and even change their mind about what they believe,” he said.

He continued that the group may be able to swing students “to the right.”

In addition to receiving backing from the school, the chapter also had legal help from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

The nonprofit organization sent a letter to the administration that warned the student government may have violated conservative students’ right to free expression by refusing to recognize the chapter.

Watch the full interview above.

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