The University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus continues to witness advertisements and active campaigning by leftist organizations. These include the commonly seen political stickers and Marxist materials that dot the campus, as well as active outreach by these organizations via pamphlets, booths set up on campus, and other informationals.
This writer has repeatedly contacted these organizations, both via email and in person, asking them to sit down and discuss their ideas for this newspaper. However, I have not only been repeatedly ignored, but I have also personally been informed, in person, that these organizations will not participate in any interview or discussion of their ideas.
Several months ago, we detailed and observed expanding communist influence on campus, namely, the variety of stickers and posters that now dot the campus, but also the active outreach by these organizations. It seemed, at the very least, that there was a growing interest in these political ideologies by the student body or that these ideological organizations were attempting to become more aggressive in an attempt to spread their ideas. It’s even possible that both of these observations may be true. In any case, I had attempted to reach out to these organizations for comment – comment on their ideology and political positions or comment on the political lay of the land as they saw it at the University of Minnesota.
Initially, I hadn’t heard anything despite sending several emails to these organizations. I had initially thought that perhaps their inbox was mismanaged or perhaps they’d missed my emails, but I had sent more than one to believe this not to be the case. I had also thought that these organizations, despite what would ostensibly be free press, were not interested in working with another student news organization. While this would have felt somewhat demeaning, that too might be understandable, especially if they were unfamiliar with us. However, this is far from the case.
One day, I had noticed these organizations handing out flyers and material on campus. They had set up small tables in the usual places, near Coffman, near the bridge between East and West Bank, etc. I had approached the group responsible for the myriad of communist stickers around campus, “Socialist Revolution”, and had asked personally if they’d be inclined to a short interview for this paper. However, when they had asked what student newspaper would be interviewing them, they immediately recognized our name and had told me they were specifically unable to conduct any interviews whatsoever with me.
In another instance, the Democratic Socialists of America had a similar table set up on campus. I had approached them and even spoken to these few organizers in person. I had personally handed them my contact information. However, again, after giving them the name of this newspaper, the man I was speaking to did a double take, and our conversation quickly ended despite his initial candor to interview and speak.
We can see that the lack of dialogue between these organizations was not merely accidental. To me personally, and I’m sure others may share a similar sentiment, there is something deeply wrong and perhaps even unsettling for these organizations to refuse to communicate with newspapers and media. There is no doubt that some newspaper outlets are less charitable or disingenuous, but this is nothing new nor is it the case for this newspaper. Instead, it says much more about these organizations unwilling to reach out or speak beyond any medium than their own propaganda or public relations.
