If I were still carrying a TPUSA title, what happened on April 22 would have been enough for me to walk away. You don’t fight for free speech by banning student journalists. You don’t build a movement by turning away supporters who drove hours to be there. And you don’t honor Charlie Kirk’s legacy mocking fellow students in a half-empty room.
Browsing: TPUSA tour
In the aftermath of national attention over Baylor hosting Turning Point USA on campus, statements made at the closed event have ignited controversy amongst students and faculty.
Before Baylor’s stop on the Turning Point USA tour, which started 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, volunteers in white Turning Point USA shirts with black text reading “Freedom” lined the aisles while pop songs and red, white and blue lights filled the room.
Just hours before the event was a final change: thousands of general admission tickets were voided to accommodate a Baylor-only policy that the university claims had always been in place.
The audience at the All Are Neighbors event, hosted by multiple university coalitions, included a sizeable share of older generations, including, but not limited to, tenured professors, university staff and community members.
All Are Neighbors, held in the Cashion Academic Center, drew 270 ticketed attendees, totaling 352 people, including VIP guests and speakers, nearly filling all available seats. The event was created in response to TPUSA’s presence on campus, but speakers and organizers consistently emphasized that the gathering was not merely reactive. Instead, it functioned as a faith-centered call to action, rooted in Christian teaching and expressed through civic engagement.
A protest that challenged “Border Czar” Tom Homan’s arrival in Waco was held by various organizations across Central Texas Wednesday evening at the Interstate 35 underpass of 4th and 5th Streets.
TPUSA sent out an email in the late afternoon that attendance for the “This is The Turning Point” tour, scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m., would be limited to Baylor students only after originally being marketed for the broader community.
As of Wednesday morning, TPUSA’s “This is the Turning Point” tour is a closed event and will not allow media coverage access. Six members of The Lariat were denied credentials to the tour in an email from TPUSA’s press office.
Several students’ responses to the events reveal a disconnect between institutional attention and student interest, a disconnect that may negatively affect other events across campus.
The event, originally featuring Executive Vice President Donald Trump Jr., “Border Czar” Tom Homan and Political Commentator Benny Johnson, will now host Attorney General Ken Paxton, Homan and Johnson. Turning Point USA Baylor posted a new graphic Tuesday morning with Paxton, Homan and Johnson.
Baylor’s Department of Public Safety works with local, state and federal law enforcement partners to prepare for events of varying scale, from athletic competitions and concerts to guest speakers and campus traditions. The department also monitors similar events at other institutions as part of its planning process.
As Turning Point USA’s “This is the Turning Point” tour meets in Waco Hall April 22, another group will meet a few doors down for “All Are Neighbors,” an alternative option for students.
Criticisms directed at TPUSA accuse the organization of “provocation” or creating a “spectacle.” These claims are reinforced by short viral clips rather than engagement with the organization’s actual ideologies. When judgements form this way, people risk oversimplifying complex viewpoints and reducing TPUSA and its supporters to an out-of-context viral clip.
Baylor University will host a stop on the campus tour of Turning Point USA, a national political organization that is known for staging confrontational political events at universities. While supporters say these events at universities promote free speech and bring conservative ideas onto campus, but Baylor students should be asking a deeper question: are these tours actually to foster dialogue, or are they designed to turn universities into a stage for political theatre?
Turning Point USA’s This is the Turning Point Tour will stop at Baylor April 22, bringing several nationally known conservative commentators and political figures to campus.
