Turning Point USA – Anti-Defamation League

Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is an Illinois-based right-wing student organization founded by Charlie Kirk, 25, who now serves as executive director, and William Montgomery, the groups treasurer. Kirk was 18 when he met Montgomery, who was then in his late 60s, after Kirk gave a speech at Benedictine University in Illinois in 2012.[3]

The organizations stated mission is to identify educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government. TPUSA claims to have representation at more than 1,300 high schools and college campuses nationwide. It also runs the controversial Professor Watchlist, which seeks to expose professors who allegedly discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom. The group has raised millions of dollars from conservative donors since its founding.[4]In the groups six-year history, TPUSAs leadership and activists have made multiple racist or bigoted comments and have been linked to a variety of extremists.

Kirk and Candace Owens, 29, are the public face of TPUSA. They often appear at public events together. Owens became communications director and director of urban outreach after she emerged as a right-wing activist during Gamergate, a debate over journalistic ethics in videogame review which devolved into vicious harassment campaign against people (mostly women) who spoke out against misogyny and sexism in the videogaming community.[5]

Owens, who is black, is no stranger to controversial statements; she frequently claims that Democrats have brainwashed black people.[6]

Looking beyond American campuses, TPUSA is expanding its activities abroad. Owens made her December 2018 comments about Hitler during an event to help establish a British version of the group, Turning Point UK.[7]

TPUSA and Right-Wing Extremists

TPUSA has received considerable support from conservatives and pro-Trump organizations. Right-wing extremists reactions to the group have been varied, but generally positive. TPUSA has generated support from anti-Muslim bigots and alt lite activists, and from some corners of the white supremacist alt right. However, other white supremacists have criticized TPUSA for distancing itself from controversial stances on racism, and for the groups connections to non-white right-wing activists.

In 2018, white supremacist James Dunphy (possibly a pseudonym) wrote an article for the racist website Counter-Currents neatly capturing the prevailing mixed feelings about TPUSA. Dunphy criticized Kirks compliance with political correctness but praised him for doing wonderful things with TPUSA, saying that group members have openly supported building Trumps wall, deporting illegal immigrants, ending affirmative action, defunding sanctuary cities, and stopping unassimilable Muslims from immigrating to Europe. Dunphy also claimed that despite having many differences with white nationalists, TPUSA will nevertheless benefit them because the number of people who will migrate from its platform to a white nationalist one will be far larger than those who do the reverse.[8]

White supremacists do occasionally show up at TPUSA events, sometimes to hear the speakers and other times to linger outside in the hopes of confronting left-wing activists. Charlie Kirk has spoken out against such incidents, which can attract significant negative publicity. When white supremacists appeared outside an event at Colorado State University in early 2018, Kirk told attendees, its not who we are, its not what we believe, its not what Turning Point believes.[9]

However, in spite of such statements and attempts by TPUSA to manage some of its scandals, the controversies keep bubbling up, with most falling into one or more of these categories:

Controversies

The past three years have seen many controversial and problematic incidents connected to TPUSA.

Note: in the list that follows, several individuals are described as associated with the alt lite. The alt lite is a spin-off movement from the white supremacist alt right. Its adherents typically eschew the explicit white supremacy of the alt right but otherwise share its extremism and its prejudices, including against Muslims, immigrants, LGBTQ people (especially transgender people), and women.

May 2019: Left-wing website "It's Going Down" posted a cellphonevideo of Riley Gisar,the presidentof the TPUSA chapter at theUniversity of Nevada,Las Vegas,shouting "white power." The video also shows thewoman standing next to Gisar and the person shooting the video making racist comments andshouting,"white power." Gisar and the womanalso make the okay handgesture, which has been used as a trolling technique by people falsely claimingthe gesture represents the letters wp, for white power. However, more recently, a number of peoplehaveused the gesture as a sincere expression of white supremacy. It is unclear when the video was recorded; TPUSA responded by announcing that Gisar had beenpermanentlyremoved from the organization.

February 2019: Video surfaced of the organizations communications director, Candace Owens, appearing to defend both Adolf Hitler and nationalism. If Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run wellokay, fine. The problem is that hehad dreams outside of Germany [and] wanted to globalize, she said. Her comments, made at a December 2018 event in London, sparked widespread criticism.[1]Owens later clarified her statement, saying it was an attempt to separate the term nationalist from its associations with Hitler, adding, "He wasn't a nationalistHe was a homicidal, psychotic maniac."[2]

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Turning Point USA - Anti-Defamation League