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Fox News ran a feel-good clip showing a self-described liberal UNC Asheville senior, Benjamin Ellis, saying he was surprised to be welcomed by a Turning Point USA chapter while also having ties to College Democrats — a small but telling moment that should alarm the campus left. The network aired the segment on Fox & Friends Weekend, highlighting how young Americans are tired of the same stale, intolerant orthodoxy on campus and are willing to engage with opposing ideas. This isn’t just fluff television; mainstream conservative outlets are broadcasting that the next generation is not as monolithic as the professors and administrators assume.
I dug for more reporting to verify every detail of the student’s background and the conversation, and I found surprisingly little independent coverage beyond the Fox video itself — which means the clip will be used by partisans on both sides as a Rorschach test. That lack of follow-up reporting doesn’t erase the truth behind the moment: campus narratives get manufactured, and when a young person rejects the one-sided script the left loves to sell, it is newsworthy. Conservatives should therefore treat these moments carefully but enthusiastically, because they expose the faculty-run echo chambers for what they are.
Turning Point USA is not some fringe operation; it has become a powerhouse mobilizing young conservatives across campuses nationwide, and its growth explains why moments like the UNC Asheville clip are showing up more often. The organization’s expansion and influence have been documented in multiple outlets, and whether you love Charlie Kirk or not, the results on campuses are unmistakable: conservative students are organizing, fundraising, and changing the tenor of debate. For patriots who value free speech and honest inquiry, TPUSA’s presence is a welcome corrective to left-wing academic monoculture.
Events and summits staged by TPUSA — and covered by friendly outlets like Fox — are doing what colleges used to promise: exposing students to competing ideas and forcing them to defend their views in public. Coverage of these summits shows a lively, unapologetic movement of students who refuse to be shamed into silence, and that’s why administrators who censor or punish dissent should be on notice. The true scandal is not that conservatives are organizing; it’s that so many universities still act like free exchange of ideas is optional and discipline is the default for disagreement.
Make no mistake: conservative students still face harassment and outright hostility in many places, and when right-leaning tabling events are disrupted or targeted, the media too often looks the other way. Stories of conservative club tables being jeered, flipped, or shut down are not rare — which is why seeing a liberal student publicly embraced by TPUSA is such a powerful rebuke to campus bullies. If colleges want to claim they teach critical thinking, they should start by allowing it without weaponizing conduct codes against dissenting viewpoints.
So to every hardworking American who still believes in freedom of thought: cheer when a young person refuses to be boxed in by the left’s dogma, but demand more than a viral clip. Ask your local college to protect debate, support student groups that will defend free expression, and hold administrators accountable when they silence one side to protect another. The future of this country depends on young patriots willing to face down groupthink — and moments like the UNC Asheville exchange show that the fight for free thought is far from lost.
