Posted on 02/28/2013 5:30:21 PM PST by rhema
The head of a conservative student organization at DePaul University has been sanctioned by the university and could be expelled after he released the names of vandals who destroyed a pro-life flag display.
Kristopher Del Campo, the chairman of the Young Americans for Freedom chapter, was found guilty by the university on two counts – “Disorderly, Violent, Intimidating or Dangerous Behavior to Self or Others” and “Judicial Process Compliance.”
DePaul University did not return calls seeking comment.
Last January Del Campo and other pro-life students received permission from the university to erect a pro-life display featuring 500 flags. Vandals later destroyed the display – stuffing a number of the flags into trash cans.
The university’s public safety department launched an investigation and eventually identified 13 students who confessed to the crime. Those names were then released by the university to Del Campo.
On Feb. 5 the national Young Americans for Freedom organization posted the names of the vandals on their website. The posting generated negative comments directed at the vandals – and the university held Del Campo responsible.
Three days later, Del Campo was informed that he had violated DePaul’s Code of Student Responsibility. He was formally charged ten days later.
“Instead of supporting a student whose free speech rights were violated, DePaul University bullied Kristopher Del Campo for daring to expose the 13 vandals,” said Young America’s Foundation President Ron Robinson. “They put him through a Soviet-style show trial.”
Free speech and conservative groups said they are shocked that the university is punishing the victim of a crime.
“Simply publishing the names of the students who confessed to vandalizing YAF’s display does not place them at ‘substantial risk of physical harm,” wrote Pete Bonilla, of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education in a letter to the university’s president.
“The 13 DePaul students named in the public safety report admitted not only to vandalizing YAF’s display but also planning to do so,” he wrote. “Students who purposefully vandalize the works of other students should not expect to be shielded from the public consequences of their actions.”
According to an email obtained by Fox News, the dean of students warned Del Campo that he could ultimately be removed from the university.
“It is unfortunate that this incident is part of your educational career,” wrote Dean of Students Art Munin. “Any further infractions of the Code of Student Responsibility during your probationary period may result in additional disciplinary action including removal from the university.”
Del Campo, a 23-year-old psychology major, is about to graduate. He agreed to speak to me knowing that he could face expulsion.
“I lost my dignity as a person,” he said. “They told me I couldn’t say anything and I had to keep all of this confidential.”
Del Campo said he is speaking out because he doesn’t want other conservatives to suffer through the ordeal he’s been subjected to.
“The dean told me not to fight,” he said. “He told me it wasn’t worth it – that I just have 13 weeks left at the university. But I’m going to fight this. This is wrong. This university has a problem with free speech rights and this time they met a challenger who is not backing down.” Kate Edwards, of YAF, said they are demanding that DePaul University drop all charges against Del Campo.
“His free speech rights were completely violated,” she told me. “They intimidated him. They threatened him. They placed a gag order on him.”
Edwards said the university even forbade Del Campo from contacting YAF and was not allowed to have any counsel during his tribunal.
“He couldn’t get a lawyer – he was completely intimidated,” Edwards said.
I was once active in YAF. I’m glad that it’s still alive and kicking.
Another CINO University.
Of course they like to punish victims. It’s what the left does. It is also OK to give rape victims the death penalty (abortions). They punish victims of other crimes by insisting that the perpetrators don’t really deserve to be in prison.
This kid should blacken the college’s name as much as possible. Call in the biggest pro-life groups to sue the school for all they have. It’s time we started trying to shut these cesspools down.
not surprised anymore
Wow!
No wonder colleges and universities are pumping out people conditioned to be useless sheep!
And students pay vast sums of money to learn about graft, corruption and the correct way of covering up crimes!
Note to conservative students. Never and I mean NEVER show up to a disiplinary hearing without a lawyer.
The end is near.
Sounds like getting raped in Pakistan.
Thanks rhema.
Call in the biggest pro-life groups to sue the school for all they have.
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The dean needs an education...
Del Campo should appeal to the local diocesan bishop and the Vatican.
Liberal tolerance, ya'll.
I'm actually surprised they even bothered to find out the idenity of the vandals. What was wrong with him releasing their names? What was the initial punishment that the vandals got?
Another Land’O Lakes fatality.
If they can’t grant freedom of thought and speech to students on campus. They shouldn’t have any right to academic freedom from the teaching of the Church.
I don’t know. If he broke a rule then that is that.
WHAT????????
I was a YAF state chairman forty years ago. "If he broke a rule then that is that"????????????
I am also a Catholic. The presiding bishop of the archdiocese where DePaul is located is Francis Cardinal George of Chicago. If Catholics or others write to him respectfully (which HE, unlike DePaul deserves) asking justice and complete exoneration for the student and severe ecclesiastical punishment of the university under John Paul II's document (Ex Corde Ecclesiae) as to higher education institutions CLAIMING to be Catholic while behaving as heathen enemies of the Faith and, individual punishment of the university officials, Cardinal George may well investigate and act.
Supporting Young Americans for Freedom and its senior associate group, Young America's Foundation, are also good ideas especially if in accompanying correspondence, you make reference to this matter of DePaul as your reason.
Another group to support is the Cardinal Newman Society (not the mushy Newman Clubs) also started by YAF members of my generation which has opposed appearances at "Catholic" colleges by the likes of Victoria (widow of Ted) Kennedy, Kathleen Sebelius, Obozo himself, and other gung-ho pro-abortion heretics and/or enemies of the Faith.
When DePaul, which CLAIMS to be Catholic, begins to prove that it acts as a genuinely Catholic university, then and only then, should anyone consider respecting its "rules" or its leaders.
BTW, it was not the university's "rules" that were violated but the usual standards of political correctness not embodied in objective rules but understood by the heathens running the institution according to the "feelings" of its "leaders."
Let tumbleweed be all that is ever seen in the observable areas of this hellhole excuse for a Catholic university. Let the buildings fall from neglect. Let its corpse rot. Part of BEING a Catholic university is refusing to be intimidated by loudmouthed feminazis and their supporters.
Any "Catholic" university: DePaul, Georgetown, Notre Shame, Boston College, etc., etc., etc., that cannot be bothered to defend innocent unborn babies or which actually supports those barbarians who support the dismemberment and death of those babies, does not deserve to exist.
Academic freedom is a farcical concept. People don’t start universities so that other people can teach anything they want, and there are teachings unsuitable for a university setting such as those that undermine the larger society or run contrary to the institution’s purpose. On the other hand, freedom without the adjective “academic” remains freedom, and for the most part people may still go about expressing what they believe to be true. What’s different about academic institutions is the institutions. At a respectable institution, no mere mortal is the god of the institution.
I'm glad to hear about this group. John Newman, who, among many other things, wrote The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated (1852) and the hymn Lead, Kindly Light, deserves better than the mushy Newman clubs.
I would much rather my child be an excellent welder than to be attending such a ‘university’ of higher learning.
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