Bayonne High conservative club has critics on one side, First Amendment defenders on the other

Bayonne High Schools Turning Point USA club is now old enough to have students who participated as freshmen away at college.

Yet in its fifth year, the club affiliated with a prominent and controversial national conservative youth organizations is sparking debate in the Bayonne school community about the national group one teacher called it a flea-ridden dog and whether a chapter belongs in the high school.

Students who identify themselves as minorities told the Board of Education at its October meeting they feel less safe at school knowing that they have peers who affiliate themselves with Turning Point USA, whose past controversies involve spreading disinformation and hateful rhetoric against Blacks, Jews, Muslims and the LGBT+ community.

Two teachers called for a rebranding of the club at the September board meeting, arguing that while a debate or young Republicans club would be appropriate, a club affiliated with the flea ridden dog Turning Point USA risks hurting the high school community because of the national organizations reputation.

Club members, meanwhile, say the chapter welcomes students of all beliefs and backgrounds and is simply a place to converse and debate about political topics. Its the First Amendment that is keeping district officials as little more than spectators to the discussion.

Administrators monitor what goes on in the club, like all clubs, but at this time do not see grounds to change it because the students are exercising their freedom of speech and have not broken school rules, Board of Education President Maria Valado said in an interview.

Censoring or curtailing speech is very complicated, so our attorneys have advised us that the U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized that students do not shed their constitutional rights and right to freedom of speech when they come into the school building, Valado said.

Bill Montgomery and a then-teenage Charlie Kirk founded the national Turning Point USA organization in 2012. It now claims to be the most organized, active and powerful network of conservative student activists and names its core values as freedom, free markets and limited government.

It has also had its fair share of controversy. National and chapter leaders have been documented using racist and other bigoted language. Some have been found to have ties to white nationalist groups and the organization itself has crossed paths with groups such as the anti-Muslim group ACT for America. A watchlist of professors and a paid pro-Trump disinformation campaign have been alleged.

Bayonne alum Petra Ghaly founded the high schools chapter during the 2017-18 school year. Club meetings are a space where students discuss or debate political topics freely and without judgment, said current President Mark Basta and Vice President Jessica Longobardi.

Recent meetings have included discussions about COVID-19, inflation and capitalism versus socialism, Longobardi said. She called it a non-partisan club where most participants are more likely to lean conservative.

Ghaly, who graduated in the spring, said she jumped through hoops to start the club and keep it running, first being told that she couldnt start the club because of its political nature, and then in its second year having to reapply for it to continue operating.

A teacher called Longobardi a domestic terrorist and Ghaly a white supremacist because of their involvement in the club; and Ghaly claims she was subjected to online harassment that included death threats from other students when she was elected student representative of the Board of Education.

She, Basta and Longobardi have attended Turning Point USA conferences, and Basta said hes shut down conversations about the club disaffiliating from the national organization.

If we really pick on an organization as being racist just because someone said something that implied racism, wed be filtering out every political organization, Basta said.

Members of other clubs, meanwhile, said that Turning Points presence at the school makes them feel unsafe.

I believe that this is one of those times that students are allowed to be upset and should speak out, senior Zaria Keith, president of the Young Black Excellence club, told the Board of Education. This is immensely uncomfortable and is causing students of color to feel as though their fellow classmates could feel a sense of superiority over them just because of their skin.

Its the values of Turning Point USA as an organization that makes students like Mell Scott feel unsafe, the senior who also spoke before the board said. Scott, the president of the LGBTQ+ and allies club and a member of the Young Black Excellence club, who also identifies as transgender and queer, said the values and morals in this organization are a direct attack against people like me.

Basta and Valado said the students from Turning Point and the other clubs met after the board meeting to discuss the issues and they invited each other to meetings to get a better understanding of what theyre like. Scott said he and Keith went to the clubs next meeting before learning it had been cancelled.

Valado said students can continue expressing their views to the board, which will intervene if there are incidents that occur at Bayonne High School.

In an interview, Scott said he recognizes that the clubs existence is a freedom of speech issue and doesnt expect for the club to get disbanded. Students, however, deserve some reassurance from members of Turning Point USA that the club does not pose a threat to clubs that serve as safe spaces for marginalized students, Scott said.

I kind of dont understand the demographic that theyre looking for, Scott said. I want them to at least address to everyone say Hey we know what type of things Turning Point is known for, and I would like for them to just kind of address or highlight that just to at least keep other kids who are Black or gay or trans at ease knowing that at least thats a place that theyre not going to be targeted.