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PHOENIX — A student at Loyola University New Orleans who has twice been denied the opportunity to start a Turning Point USA chapter on campus vowed at the conservative organization’s annual AmericaFest conference that she would keep fighting.
Anistin Murray is a freshman at the Catholic school located in the heart of the Big Easy. She and two other would-be co-founders of the campus club have endured a monthslong battle with the school’s student government association (SGA), which insists that Turning Point shouldn’t have a presence on campus.
On Oct. 15, the TPUSA students were first denied an official charter. Murray and her fellow founders then enlisted the help of Loyola New Orleans law students to draft an appeal, saying that the decision was “subjective.”
“Most of it was subjective reasoning,” law student Ethan Estis told Fox News Digital at the time. “They didn’t really root it in any of the laws or rules and regulations that they’re supposed to follow, and it was purely subjective. And that was our basis in attack in the written appeal that we did.“
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After the appeal succeeded in the school’s Court of Review, the case was remanded back to the SGA, the same body that denied Murray and her co-founders in the first place. Following a second review earlier in December, the SGA again blocked the right-leaning students.
“They said that, you know, it does make a lot of the students feel uncomfortable and that it will bring a lot of hate and negativity and all this disruption to the university, which I find quite sad because that’s not what an organization is meant to push,” Murray told Fox News Digital at AmericaFest in Phoenix.
“You know, they say that they stand for the majority of the students and the student body at Loyola, but I think to undermine that, there were people who voted yes to have a Turning Point at Loyola,” she said, adding that she feels like students who agree with TPUSA’s values have been silenced.
Murray said that Turning Point stands for dialogue, not hatred.
“Just because people disagree with us does not mean that there needs to be uncivil discourse,” she said. “Like, we can talk civilly and understand that we disagree, but we’re hearing each other and understanding that we both come from different places, and I think that was the biggest part for [the SGA], and that was a very important question that got reiterated a lot.”
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Murray said that the group is formulating a plan of action to proceed, despite the two denials.
A representative from the school previously told Fox News Digital that there is no limit to how many times the Turning Point students can appeal the SGA’s decision.
Despite the denials, Murray remains undeterred. She wants to work with the school to find a positive solution. Part of moving forward, she said, includes having a conversation with the school on how to proceed within the university’s guidelines.
“We don’t want to step on our university’s toes, but we are not backing down,” said Murray.
“These people who are against us need to understand that just because they’re against us, we’re not against them. Turning Point is not just an outlet for conservative believers, but Turning Point does have faithfully driven values that do align with conservative values.
“Having this critical deliberation is the sense of learning and growing and what we need on this university’s campus.”
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Loyola New Orleans told Fox News Digital that there are currently no updates on the situation.
“Following the December 3 appeal process, the Student Government Association Senate voted to deny the charter application, and the SGA President upheld the decision,” the school said. “The students may pursue an additional appeal in the spring semester, and no new materials have been submitted since the SGA President upheld the decision.”
The SGA has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
