Va. Tech Pulls funding for conservative group over immigration speech

Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) is beung threatened with funding cuts from  Virginia Tech administrators after co-sponsoring former Treasury Secretary Bay Buchanan  at a speech at the university.

Young Americans for Freedom, which co-sponsored the speech by the conservative pundit and sister of former presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan with the school’s College Republicans, is appealing a decision made by the university’s Student Budget Board. The board denied the group funding for an already-scheduled speech by (former GOP presidential candidate) Herman Cain, as well as all other aid for the rest of the year.

The speech itself wasn’t what ignited the controversy, it was the efforts to inform students of the upcoming event that drew in agitators:

But the trouble began before the event, when a flyer circulated by YAF touting Buchanan’s apperance [sic] and alluding to an “alien invasion” caught the attention of Latino groups on campus. The Latino Association of Student Organizations reacted angrily on its Facebook page.

The board then decided that the content was offensive and subsequently “unanimously voted to deny funding.”