U Of Tampa RA Training Includes Scenario Of Student Feeling “Threatened” By Conservative Roommate With MAGA Flag

By Brendan McDonald of CampusReform

The University of Tampa’s resident advisor (RA) training featured a hypothetical scenario in which a student complained about feeling “unsafe” because a roommate hung a “Make America Great Again” flag and was a member of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF).

Affiliated with the Young America’s Foundation, YAF chapters organize conservative speakers and trainings for students on campuses around the country. A picture of the University of Tampa slide was obtained and shared by the group on Friday, Aug. 16.

“You just returned from class and one of your residents asks to speak with you,” the training slide reads. “He states that he feels unsafe in his room and needs an immediate room change. He goes on to state that he feels unsafe and threatened because his roommate put up a ‘Make America Great Again’ flag in the room and that he is a member of YAF.”

Slide from the University of Tampa RA training on how to handle a resident who “feels unsafe and threatened because his roommate put up a ‘Make America Great Again’ flag in the room and…is a member of YAF.” pic.twitter.com/OdB3ZxcVKR

— Spencer Brown (@itsSpencerBrown) August 16, 2024

On the YAF website, University of Tampa YAF Chair Nicole Gillis criticized the slide as the most recent example of colleges and universities attempting to indoctrinate their students. 

“This is the unfortunate state of higher education in America right now,” she said. “Universities are indoctrinating students by painting conservatives as evil. This seemingly small example in an RA training at UT implies they think that conservatives are dangerous and that students should be afraid of people with conservative ideas.” 

The Young America’s Foundation Chief Office Spencer Brown pointed out what he sees as the contrast between how school administrators treat conservative students versus how they treat liberal ones. 

“The demonizing of conservative students and infantilizing coddling of fragile leftists who outrageously claim to feel physically threatened by intellectual diversity does a disservice to students and ought to be roundly mocked,” he said. “A school such as the University of Tampa — or any with wildly biased trainings like this — has no business calling itself an institution of ‘higher’ learning. Clearly, University of Tampa administrators and student employees need some mandatory tolerance training.”

Conservative students regularly feel isolated and discriminated against by their universities. Three self-identified conservative students from two different schools spoke in a Fox News interview last month about they feel silenced in and out of the classroom, with one saying she has been “yelled at” by professors.