On a Thursday afternoon in a Palmer Hall classroom, a scene played out that might have been bewildering to the average observer on the Colorado College campus.
Conversations on conservatism veered off into tangents about lobbying, privilege and immigration, as students with varying political beliefs talked over one another to provide input and inquiries on the arguments.
Although perhaps chaotic at times, the students appeared as a tight-knit, intimate group of friends who seemed to enjoy intellectual discussions mixed in with plenty of laughter.
It wasn’t a mock debate or an improv troupe. The setting was a Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) meeting three weeks ago on Thursday, Feb. 5.
YAF is a college chapter of a national conservative youth organization committed to promoting open dialogue, free speech and interacting with a variety of ideas. CC’s chapter, founded in 2023 by co-founders Michael Benin ‘26 and Joanna Oster ‘26, is an ideological minority at CC and has been subject to criticism and negative commentary throughout its history, according to YAF.
According to Benin, who serves as president of YAF, the group is widely viewed as a “very Trump-leaning group or Trump-friendly group without us ever having made a statement or expressed support for the Trump administration.”
“I don’t run a conversion camp to try to turn progressives into conservatives,” he added.
According to Benin, some Colorado College students might believe that YAF is “a wing for the Republican Party” because of their lack of presence on campus, allowing those who are not close to the chapter to find “placeholders” for YAF’s objectives.
Isabella Garamova ‘27, the vice president of YAF, argues that many club members are critical of Republican President Donald Trump and his policies, saying that he wasn’t “the best candidate for conservatives.” However, she acknowledged that many YAF members voted for Trump because “they didn’t like the opposition.”
“I think one of the biggest issues we’ve seen politically is the ‘othering’ of both sides,” Garamova said. “My goal within YAF at CC is to bridge that divide and stop villainizing both super progressive people on campus as well as super conservative people. I think they all deserve a voice on campus.”
YAF is overseen by the Young America’s Foundation, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting conservative ideals among young people nationwide. Colorado College’s YAF chapter has a strong relationship with its parent organization, Benin says, but also maintains significant independence, allowing the club’s leadership considerable creative freedom in how they run the chapter.
As someone tasked with running club operations and involved in recruiting new members, Garamova said she knows individuals interested in joining the chapter express concerns about what becoming a member would do to their public perception on campus.
Sometimes, she says, a student might say, “I really support what you guys are doing and I want to get involved, but I’m too afraid to get involved because I don’t want to have this social scrutiny and ruin my college experience.”
“Getting people to feel comfortable coming […] every single one of us in the club has felt that,” she added. “To what extent am I willing to make my life difficult to be a part of a club?”
Cameron Britton ‘29, a member of the club, expressed similar sentiments about some students’ concerns about joining. Associating with YAF could be “social suicide” for some students because of the current culture on campus.
A post on Yik Yak, an anonymous social media app, called attention to a tabling event that YAF members hosted at the centermost crosswalk on campus on Jan. 28, with a prompt for discussion that read, “Change My Mind! Nuclear energy is the future of green energy.”
The post, which had a picture of the tabling event’s prompt, also included a meme with a description that read, “when someone has the exact same opinion as you but they express it in such an annoying and obnoxious way that you lowkey don’t want to agree.”
The anonymous post racked up roughly 180 upvotes on the platform.
Britton would have appreciated hearing the comment in person at the event instead of on an anonymous social media platform.
“We agree with you, but we don’t like you because of your title,” he said about the post, arguing that criticism without direct confrontation with YAF contributes to a polarizing political culture and a path for uncivilized discourse.
On that particular topic, Kaviya Chidambaram ‘27, a Chapter Lead of the Sunrise Colorado Springs chapter, which focuses on climate justice and empowering the youth to organize and take action, said she understands why some young people might be moving toward conservative movements.
“It’s the same reason that we’re moving towards progressive movements,” Chidambaram said. Chidambaram believes that young people want honesty and political power, and want to be done with the “soul-crushing feeling that our government sucks and the world is over.”
“I think Sunrise is trying to offer solutions to that problem,” she added.
Some members of YAF, like Benin, are also concerned about the lack of space for students to express their opinions in class if they do not align with professors’ views. Some professors, said Benin, like to have their “opinions regurgitated to them.”
“We want to teach students how to think, not what to think […] that is ultimately lacking in the classroom,” said Benin. “In my perfect world, we wouldn’t be teaching students to think conservatively or to think like a libertarian or a progressive, but to have a more genuine representation […] of other ideas.”
For her part, Chidambaram values hearing students’ arguments in class that differ from her own.
“I think it’s interesting to see the dynamic between professors and students who are bringing their [conservative takes] up and how those conversations are navigated,” she said. “I also think it’s a good opportunity for my own personal argumentative hygiene to be able to clarify: can I argue against these points, why do I believe what I believe, and are these points supported by evidence?”
With the public release of a new Freedom of Expression policy on campus, Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students Lacy Karpilo wants students to know that they should feel comfortable expressing their opinions on campus and participating in the activities they are passionate about.
She said that if a student feels they can’t express a certain political view in class, she would like to know and have a conversation about it.
“I would welcome any student to say, ‘Hey, this is what’s happening for me,’ and then I can work with them to get them connected to resources, and get them so that they feel like their voices can be heard,” she said.
According to Karpilo, students should not “feel like they will face social repercussions” for participating in certain activities on campus, but must understand that a student’s right to express themselves cannot involve harassment, discrimination, violence, violating the law or inhibiting the use or access of college facilities and functions.
Campus-wide events sponsored by YAF in the past, including talks with speakers Daniel Di Martino, a conservative Venezuelan activist, and Yeonmi Park, a North Korean defector, faced considerable backlash from some students. In the days leading up to the Martino speaker event, YAF flyers advertising the talk were destroyed, tampered with and parodied.
Such activities involving a club’s advertising attempts would constitute a violation of the freedom of expression policy under the new revisions, according to Karpilo. If reported, an investigation would occur and be processed through the conduct system.
As reported by the Catalyst, CCSGA denied special events funding for YAF for their speaker event with Martino, citing at the time that student government “cannot use student tuition for partisan activities, and that student money must benefit the entire student body.”
However, members of the CC administration and its legal counsel, including Karpilo, decided to override the denial and fund the event “presumably to avoid legal action.”
Due to time constraints for publication, members of CCSGA were unable to respond for comment on this conflict, a former Vice President of Internal Affairs’ promotion of the Park speaker event and whether the student government body has received complaints about YAF.
Ultimately, Benin intends for YAF to be a place where students can participate in healthy discourse about their different ideas, improving individuals’ lives through dialogue.
“We may disagree with the methods,” he said, “but if we can diagnose the problems together and talk about them together and then, most importantly, do something about it together, then we can improve someone’s life.”