The California Turning Point Club of the USA is in danger after the councilor’s comments

A Northern California elected official is under scrutiny for comments he made at an after-school meeting of a conservative student club, in which he attributed his daughter’s sexual behavior to childhood trauma and repeated comments criticizing workplace diversity and the legacy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Lincoln City Council Member Holly Andreatta’s comments at Twelve Bridges High School also drew attention to the emergence of Turning Point USA groups at high schools across the country. The nonprofit estimates there are now at least 1,200 chapters of its high school program, Club America. Elected officials in Florida, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas recently announced partnerships with the group to expand access to more schools in those states.

“Schools have always been — but especially now — a platform for Republican Party politics, for conservative politics,” said Hava Gordon, a University of Denver sociology professor who studies youth activism.

The dispute over the Club America chapter in Twelve Bridges has engulfed the community of Lincoln, a mountain town 25 miles northeast of Sacramento. Dozens of students and parents spoke out at a recent school board meeting, with some saying the club created an uncomfortable environment by promoting hate speech and others defending its right to exist, according to the Sacramento Bee, which first reported on the controversy. A group of students claims to have collected 300 signatures on a petition for the club to be disbanded, this newspaper reported.

The Western Placer Unified School District said it is legally required to respect students’ rights to form and participate in student-led clubs regardless of their opinion. “Protecting student free speech and protecting student welfare are shared responsibilities,” the district said in a statement. “The district remains committed to accomplishing both, even if the issues involved are difficult or uncomfortable.”

Andreatta, who is running for Placer County supervisor, declined to speak in an interview but said in a three-page statement that she had been invited to appear at the inaugural Club America chapter meeting on Dec. 11. As a former public school teacher — she taught eighth-grade U.S. history at Roseville Middle School for 14 years, according to her campaign website — she gladly accepted the opportunity, she said.

Student leaders described the group as “a Christian political club intended to provide a space where students can respectfully discuss and debate ideas and explore freedom and American values,” Andreatta said. The room was packed with students who had gone directly to protest, adding that they were very respectful.

The topic of Andreatta’s speech was the relationship between Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and Jesus, he said in a video of the speech posted online. After commenting on the legacy of the political activist, who was killed on September 10, Andreatta pointed to her daughter as an example of what she described as Kirk’s message of love for people she disagreed with.

“My oldest daughter suffered a lot when she was a child,” said Andreatta. “Something terrible happened to him at a young age that I hope never happens to another child, and because of that, he’s a bisexual woman, he’s gay, and he’s married to a woman, and sometimes that’s a little bit. [an] it’s an internal struggle for me because I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.”

After the speech, Andreatta opened the meeting to a question-and-answer session and engaged several students in conversation.

To a student who asked him about the separation of church and state, he replied, “Separation of church and state is a myth. That’s right. It’s not in the Constitution.”

To a student who said Kirk had “said some racist things” about black people at work, Andreatta tried to explain Kirk’s criticism of so-called “DEI policies.”

“He was saying that Black people can’t be pilots,” she said. “…But if you say you have to have 50% black pilots and we need to do it now, what do you need to do to get that big percentage? You have to lower the standards.”

To a reader who asked Andreatta what he and Kirk “thought of Martin Luther King Jr.,” Andreatta replied: “It’s been found in a lot of research that Martin Luther King was a Marxist and that he was a supporter of human welfare and a lot of the civil rights things that he stood for weren’t really helpful.”

In his statement, Andreatta said the video that went viral “was heavily edited and out of context, giving the false impression that I said things I could say and misrepresenting my intentions and my character.” He said it was recorded and shared by a student who told his classmates he “intended to use this video to ‘put me down.'”

(Videos from various sources have been shown, including some that appear to show the entire meeting.)

Regarding his comments about the pilots and King, Andreatta said he was explaining the arguments made by Kirk, not passing on his own opinions. Regarding King in particular, he said, “If given the opportunity, I would clearly say that I disagree and believe that Dr. King’s legacy stands on its own moral authority.”

Andreatta also said she regrets talking about her daughter. “In my efforts to share a vulnerable example of love and acceptance, I shared too much, and that hurt her,” she said. “I apologized to him in private, and I apologize to him in public.”

After the meeting, the student leaders of the Club America chapter were harassed and mistreated, Andreatta said, while she received a direct message containing death threats, which she reported to the police.

His fellow council members distanced themselves from his words.

Lincoln Mayor Richard Pearl pointed out that Andreatta attended the meeting as an independent person, not as a representative of the city. “He made a big mistake in his community and himself in his words at Club America and I disagree with those words,” he said in a statement.

“I want to be clear: I do not agree with the views expressed by my fellow council member,” echoed Vice Mayor Whitney Eklund.

The Placer County Democratic Party condemned Andreatta’s comments, saying in a statement that they are “dangerous to the students who listened to him and cause harm to communities throughout Placer County.”

The myth that trauma affects one’s sexuality is racist; the idea of ​​separation of church and state is not only a reality, but it is the basic foundation of the nation; and the lie that safety standards have been lowered to hire more people of color is undermining the hard work of millions, the statement said.

Ruth Cox, president of the Democratic Club of Lincoln, called on Andreatta to step down.

“These statements show a pattern of misinformation and prejudice that should disqualify anyone from holding public office,” Cox wrote in a letter to Gold Country Media, the publisher of the community newspaper. “What we’ve seen is a Lincoln City Council member promoting white Christian propaganda to high school students.”

In the interview, Cox said the parent filed a complaint against the school district, saying it failed to protect the children. “They have a First Amendment right to have that group,” he said. “But they don’t have the right to abuse that platform in a way that harms the student community.”

Andreatta says he has no plans to resign from the city council or abandon his campaign for supervisor.

While youth activism is nothing new in high schools, Club America is different from other organizations, said Gordon, a sociology professor. He cited its well-developed infrastructure that enables those wishing to start a chapter to order activism resources including planning resources, and its well-defined campaigns that promote capitalist values ​​and criticize the dangers of socialism.

Club America chapters have received unusual support from elected officials who may see participating students as the future of the Republican base, she said. But the chapters have also sparked controversy, “representing a major pushback against Trumpism,” he said.

In Scottsdale, Ariz., a petition for the school district to remove the Club America chapter from Saguaro High School has received more than 2,100 signatures.

In New Lenox, Ill., district officials recently opened a chapter at Lincoln-Way West High School following a controversy in which some parents said staff slowed the program because of the club’s political stance, according to a Patch report. The petition now seeks to remove that chapter, calling it “a breeding ground for ideas that promote racism, homophobia, and misogyny.”

And in Winfield, Kan., a student-led effort to remove a chapter from Winfield High School drew a letter from a public interest law firm, warning the local school district that banning the club based on its ideology would violate the First Amendment.