Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is warning public schools in his state that legal action will be taken if they block students from forming Turning Point USA chapters following the assassination of conservative leader Charlie Kirk.
“Our AG’s Office of Parental Rights will take legal action against any schools or districts that are preventing TPUSA clubs from existing on campus,” Uthmeier said in a post on X Thursday, reports Newsweek.
He added in a video that the parental rights office, launched earlier this year, will “ensure we are protecting the rights of students to organize, associate, and engage and debate.”
Uthmeier did not specify which schools had tried to block the clubs.
Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet said Tuesday the organization, co-founded by Kirk, has received a “massive surge” of requests to start new chapters, topping 120,000 since the slain leader’s memorial service last weekend.
The organization currently counts about 900 official college chapters and 1,200 high school chapters.
The group has vowed to continue Kirk’s work, with his widow, Erika, named as CEO at his request.
“Even accounting for attrition and duplicates, we are on the cusp of having a TPUSA or Club America chapter in every HS and College campus in America,” Kolvet wrote on X.
Uthmeier, however, said that his office was “hearing reports up and down the state of public schools not allowing Turning Point USA organizations to be formed on campus. This is discriminatory. It’s wrong, and we will not stand for it.”
April Carney, a member of the Duval County School Board, appeared with Uthmeier in the video and said the board is “revamping” its policies on student-led organizations to ensure there are “no issues” with students starting a TPUSA chapter or any other club.
The district’s policy manual calls for all organizations to have a certified administrator or staff member, appointed by the principal, to sponsor or advise all clubs, but Carney has proposed changing the wording so that someone other than a teacher can be a sponsor, reports WOKV in Jacksonville.
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