U of Md. Criticized for Charging Turning Point Security Fee

University of Maryland officials are facing backlash for requiring the campus chapter of a conservative student organization to pay what chapter leaders called a “viewpoint discriminatory” security fee for an event on Wednesday, CBS News reported. 

While university police staffed the event free of charge, officials required the chapter to hire its own security to conduct entrance screenings. The event, titled Fighting Like Charlie, featured Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips and was held just over a month after Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was shot and killed during an event at Utah Valley University. 

“It’s basically saying anybody, if they want to threaten our chapter or threaten us because of our viewpoints and our speech, then the university, in turn, is going to impose financial burdens on us, or else we can’t have our events,” University of Maryland senior Connor Clayton, communications chair for the campus Turning Point USA chapter, told CBS News. “That is a very dangerous precedent to put on a Turning Point chapter.”

University officials said the fee is routine and that they have required the same of other student organizations that host similar guest speaker events on campus, regardless of the speaker or message. 

The Leadership Institute, a Virginia-based nonprofit that trains conservative activists and leaders, ultimately paid the fee—which amounted to $148—on behalf of the chapter. The event proceeded as planned, according to posts on the chapter’s Instagram account.