White Nationalists Are Recruiting On Your Children's College Campuses

Thanks to the #TrumpEffect, the alt-right movement is working to polarize the nation even more than it already has. They are looking to expand their following which would explain why White nationalists are suddenly recruiting on college campuses like nobody's business. 

Since September 2016, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has counted well over 100 instances where flyers from a variety of these hate groups have been distributed.

The messages on these flyers have been beyond offensive including quips like "White Power," "Imagine a Muslim-free America," and "White people, are you sick and tired of the Jews?" At the University of Southern California, an approved vendor was kicked off the campus for selling products adorned with swastikas. The Boston Globe reported an increased frequency in these instances throughout Massachusetts. But why now and why on college campuses?

Oren Degal, director of the ADL's Center on Extremism, offers an explanation saying, "These White supremacist groups feel that now is the time to strike. They feel like their messages have been mainstreamed, they feel like like there's an opening for them now in a way they really haven't felt before."

Leadership of these organizations has been very deliberate in their decision to recruit on college campuses. Jared Taylor, a Yale graduate and member of American Renaissance, says that young White people are tired of being portrayed as overbearing elitists. "There’s a rising sense of frustration and outright anger with this characterization of all whites as privileged, oppressive, and essentially evil," Taylor said. "So I think there is a greater willingness among young Whites to strike back at this oppressive orthodoxy."

While institutions of higher learning are places where young people should discover who they are and what they believe, schools should not be breeding grounds for hate. Many will argue that these organizations have crossed the fine line between hate speech directed at protected classes and First Amendment protected speech. 

Do you think that they are within their rights to recruit on college campuses?