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Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Public Universities should not prohibit the formation of White Student Unions.

Henceforth WSU will refer to White Students Union and not Washington State University.

I can certainly understand why a University would be concerned about a WSU being founded as, or devolving into, a White supremacist organization. This is a serious concern, and should be addressed with faculty attention.

Supposing it serves the same purpose as a BSU, I think it's a violation of Title VI or the 1964 Civil Rights Act (I'm not a lawyer, don't let the username fool you.) to permit a BSU, and prohibit a WSU.

If you don't mind I'll just argue with myself for a moment to kick this off. I hope this doesn't come off as strawman, I'm here to take on the most compelling arguments. Please don't feel that your argument has been preempted because I brought it up in this section, we can certainly re-examine any of the following lines of argument.

I've heard the following arguments for prohibiting a WSU, and my responses follow:


> A. This group is/will be a White supremacist group.

Maybe! That's certainly a very real possibility. If their charter claims their goal is "revealing the true nature of the American Negro," or some such deeply troubling language, that's grounds to reject their charter. If they claim their organization is for the appreciation of Western culture, the achievements of European thinkers and architects and meeting similar looking people, but it's later found that the group is simply a sham organization for using University endorsement to spread hate speech, then it should be disbanded at that time. However, it can't be preemptively banned on the assumption that it will someday devolve into a hate group. That thinking could easily be applied to any group at all.


> B. Minority racial groups face discrimination either of a sort or at a volume that White people do not, and a race-specific group is valuable for them to advocate for themselves and/or present a united voice.

Agreed. This is certainly a reason why a minority Student Union is more valuable than a WSU. Students frequently form University-recognized organizations for frivolous reasons - my university had one for playing DOTA1, one for swapping anime, for learning rock climbing etc. If the group can attract members, certainly it's not so frivolous that it should be pre-emptively banned.


> C. The group is essentially a political organization designed to counterpoint Black Lives Matter (henceforth BLM), and my university has a policy against recognizing political groups, including BLM.

I don't have any problem with this. I'm arguing with the assumption that either BLM is a University-recognized group, or the WSU is not a facially political group.


> D. White people are already very well represented on campus and/or in University administration, and do not have trouble meeting people that look like them.

Yes, agreed, so what? Argument B. applies, but also, this argument would never be applied to Democrats or Honors Students both of which regularly form groups on campus.



> E. The group's benign conduct or mere existence may invalidate the experiences of POC OR Having a group that disagrees with some or all of the ideas spread by WSU's other-race counterparts is potentially traumatizing to people trying to share their experience.

This is a pretty weak argument.  I say that not as an ad hominem, but to pre-empt being accused of strawman-ing my way through the OP.  I bring it up because it was brought to me.  Issues like "Who should be admitted," "What ideas can be criticized," "Whose speech should be valued," and more are important enough that the answer is worth some hurt feelings.  Feelings matter - I'm sympathetic - no one likes being disagreed with, but this can't be a reason to prevent people from assembling or sharing their views.  It violates the spirit of a liberal education.

Thanks for reading!
gpt
Looking at Response B -- have you ever known any collective "white pride" group that *wasn't* about white supremacy?  You mentioned a group that celebrated, for instance, European history, etc.  Those groups can and do exist.  You can find a Norwegian students group, a European history study group, etc., if you look. 

Let's just be real.  Talk about the real world, not pure logic.  Any "White Students Union" will attract racists and white supremacists, because 99% of white people who *aren't* racists wouldn't touch a group named like that with a ten foot pole.  Google "white pride" and tell me what you find -- what percentage "white pride" or "white unions" do you find that don't believe some disturbing shit?

You act like this could be avoided by not accepting charters with facially racist missions.  Come on.  Any reasonably intelligent white supremacists will manage to hide their motives in their application materials.