An unapproved guest speaker brought in by College Republicans talked about his right-wing novel and also spread political misinformation.
The speaker, Gib Kerr, was invited to speak at Wednesday's College Republicans meeting to promote his new book, “States of Rebellion,” a novel about a dystopian future in which Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez becomes president and works towards the “aggressive implementation of her Marxist agenda.” Kerr also spoke about how the kinds of media people choose to consume influences their beliefs.
“So if you're a Fox News viewer over the last, you know, four or five years, all through the Trump presidency, you knew that the deep state spied on Hillary, and you follow this story about the corrupt people in the FBI and CIA, and how it was basically an attempted coup to get rid of Trump,” said Kerr.
Kerr followed this by saying that anyone who consumes mainstream media such as the New York Times has been made to “think” that Biden won the election fair and square.
There is no evidence to support that the election was stolen.
Kerr also stated that most of the insurrectionists “have been thrown in jail with no charges,” which is also false.
Students in attendance lined up at the end of the meeting to get copies of the book signed by Kerr.
“These things that we do believe that we don't talk to people about because we’re worried that they’re going to think we’re absolutely crazy,” said Izabel Leveille, incoming vice president for the College Republicans who attended the meeting.
“He talks about and makes it make sense to a lot of people, which is really cool.”
While the club advertised the speech on Instagram, but Bruin Link did not state that the meeting would feature a guest.
Belmont requires that all guest speakers at campus clubs and groups be approved by the university. Belmont Communications confirmed that College Republicans did not go through the proper channels to get Kerr approved.
“Belmont’s policy is that student clubs and organizations must submit any guest speaker for any meeting or event throughout the year via the event approval process in BruinLink. The approval process includes reviewing the speaker, scheduling and space availability,” the statement said.
“We have no record of this student organization submitting an event for approval that included a guest speaker.”
Jake Smith, the outgoing president of the club, provided a written statement and said he had no additional comments on the club failing to get approval for the speaker.
“Belmont College Republicans support the right of every club on campus to host speakers that values the culture of our campus and comes in good faith. We support both conservative and liberal viewpoints being heard from both sides. Bringing speakers to campus is important to inspire and encourage students to participate in our political system.”
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This article was written by Connor Daryani and Sarah Maninger.
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