EXCLUSIVE: Chip Roy Demands Answers From Christian University After Aborted Turning Point USA Event

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a candidate for the Lone Star State’s attorney general, sent a letter to Texas Christian University demanding answers after the university reportedly blocked a Turning Point USA event featuring transgender “detransitioner” Chloe Cole.

“University policies—especially for a university with Christ’s holy name in its very name and which was founded on Christian theology and principles—should reflect that heritage by not just allowing but welcoming speakers who share a viewpoint reflecting a Christ-centered view, however controversial it is deemed,” Roy wrote in the letter, first obtained by The Daily Signal.

“It has come to my attention that constraints placed on conservative or Christian points of view are often overly stringent, and administrative hurdles are excessive,” the congressman added. “Such policies and decisions, if accurate, would certainly violate the principles that Texas parents and students expect their institutions to uphold, eroding public confidence in higher education’s commitment to inquiry over conformity.”

Roy’s letter says that Texas Christian University, a private school in Fort Worth, had denied the school’s Turning Point USA chapter’s request to host an on-campus event featuring Cole.

The Event Denial

Cole is a young woman who began “transitioning” to identify herself as male at age 12, taking “cross-sex hormones” and getting a double mastectomy at age 15. But she “detransitioned” at 16 and now is a vocal advocate who opposes the medical interventions euphemistically referred to as “gender-affirming care.”

She wrote on X Tuesday that the university had been making the Turning Point USA chapter jump through “arbitrary hoops” for “a while” before ultimately denying the request for an available room to host her talk.

The school previously told The Daily Signal, however, that the event hadn’t been canceled, but rather it had not been officially booked to begin with.

“On Sept. 18, TCU [Texas Christian University] successfully hosted a TPUSA [Turning Point USA] event to honor the life of Charlie Kirk, who had previously spoken on TCU’s campus to students and the community,” a spokesperson said. “Separate from this event, an outside party, not affiliated with TCU, invited an external speaker to appear on our campus on Oct. 7. The student chapter of TPUSA then requested that TCU host the Oct. 7 event for 700 to 1,000 people. The requested space was already booked with another student event.”

“We explored options and notified the group on Sept. 25 that a secure space was not available, given the short notice, but we offered to find another date or space for the event,” the spokesperson added. “TCU never canceled this event, as it was never booked.”

Roy’s Questions

Roy’s letter notes Cole’s concerns and mentions that while Texas Christian University is private, it still receives “substantial support through federal student aid, research grants, and state educational programs, which are sustained in part by federal taxpayer dollars.”

“That support comes with a clear obligation: to resist turning campus facilities and administrative barriers into tools of leftist ideology and gatekeeping,” the congressman added. “The effective denial—by way of burden—of student groups’ access to campus facilities is certainly as serious as a full and outright denial and would raise serious questions about TCU’s commitment to diverse discourse.”

Roy’s letter asks the university to provide a list of all criteria governing whether a student organization may host outside speakers on campus, a specific rationale for the denial of this specific request, and a commitment to “ensuring future student-sponsored events will not be denied, limited, restricted, or otherwise made more difficult on the basis of a Christian or conservative viewpoint.”

The post EXCLUSIVE: Chip Roy Demands Answers From Christian University After Aborted Turning Point USA Event appeared first on The Daily Signal.