Vatz Resignation Letter to Towson’s Conservative “Youth for Western Civilization”
–Richard E. Vatz
You may have heard about the brief and stressful birth, life and demise of “Youth for Western Civilization (YWC),” a conservative group at Towson University summarized well by Tyler Waldman at Patch.com and Jordan Russell at the university newspaper, Towerlight. The organization at Towson was conceived of by student Matthew Heimbach.
Last June he described for me what the ethos and nature of YWC would be like, and the genesis of the organization. Matt asked me if I would be the advisor for the organization. He sounded a bit combative and spoke of encountering an “highly apathetic and hostile environment” at Towson.
I wrote back to him the following:
“Sounds doable if we could meet in a couple of weeks.
As I say, the only point you make that brings me pause is the
inclusion of protests and assumption of a hostile environment
before the evidence presents itself.
Part of conservatism is giving people a chance to
demonstrate their good faith.”
To make a long, complicated story relatively short, YWC indicated over time that they had encountered substantial anger, threats and harassment from a small number of campus denizens, but that several members of the Student Government Association (a truly excellent group of young men and women this academic year, incidentally) had offered their regrets.
I wrote to Matt, simply enough, “Always act resolutely with dignity – it’s the conservative way, even when it is difficult.” He assured me he and his group did.
The relations with other campus groups were fractious, and I attended a meeting of Unity in the Community Campus Forum wherein I was given a copy of an article by the YWC president printed on the national Youth for Western Civilization website
After reading Matthew’s lengthy piece, I wrote the following e-mail to him March 8 (with a few errors cleaned up):
Matthew, I write this in sorrow, not in anger.
I attended the Unity in the Community Campus Forum
discussion today for about an hour and 15 minutes, and I
noted two things:
1. Except for BSU president Kenan Herbert, there was no one who
expressed the slightest concern that YWC had been threatened,
harassed and mistreated on campus.
2. No one sympathetic to YWC expressed the slightest concern
regarding YWC’s frightening rhetoric, referring to political opponents
as “cancer,” using the words Islam and Muslim disparagingly, and
referencing “disgusting degenerates that make up our opposition.”
I am sorry, but that is not how impressive and serious
conservatives argue their case. Look at any of William
F. Buckley’s treatises, Barry Goldwater’s, [George F.
Will’s], Paul Ryan’s or go back to Voltaire [or
Edmund Burke] and you will find nothing of this style.
I realize that I have been your advisor only nominally,
but I cannot in good conscience advise a group that
attacks people or groups personally or tactlessly
or does not recognize their dignity and the value
of dignified argument in the marketplace of ideas.
I wish you and the YWC the best of luck, and I hope
that your better side wins out in the long run and also
that you and your political opponents at
Towson understand that the quality of being physically
secure at a university is non-negotiable as a starting
point.
Richard Vatz
I have never had an off-putting interaction with Matt Heimbach, either in person or by e-mail, but there are limits to what I can as a faculty advisor accept in the style and content of public debate by an organization to which I am an advisor.
The final paragraph of my e-mail is important, I believe, to the effect that public discourse requires a level of dignity that when violated becomes unacceptable in the marketplace of ideas.
Dr. Vatz has been a professor at Towson University for over 35 years.
