Controversial posts on the UMD College of Republicans Facebook page ignited concern around campus last week. However, this is not the first time that posts of this nature have appeared on the club’s page.
The most recent posts were screen-shotted and posted by UMD senior Cameron Ziebol on Overheard, a Facebook group of alumni and current students at UMD.
“This wasn’t even the first time that this had happened,” Ziebol said. “This could have been easily prevented and even called out by the group, yet they chose only to act after being put on blast.”
Past Statesman staff member, Cole White, was following the UMD College Republicans Facebook activity last year.
“It was after the election that their Facebook posts started to get weird and I started watching the page,” White said. “I’m surprised it wasn’t called to attention earlier. This didn’t happen overnight. It’s been leading up to this for awhile.”
White provided screenshots that he had taken of past posts that were controversial.
Posted March 23, 2017
Posted April 4, 2017
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Posted August 11, 2017
“Since nobody called it out earlier, it was allowed to happen,” White said. “I’m not going to blame all of the College of Republicans for that because I know some of them and they're really cool people. At the same time, lack of action is complicity.”
According to the club’s president, Kynze Lundeen, the concerning posts were posted by the vice president of the club, who has since resigned and remains unnamed. The posts have been deleted from the group’s page and Lundeen issued an apology to fellow UMD students.
“After the recent postings and now deleted posts on our College Republican Facebook page I would like to issue a personal apology to my fellow students at UMD,” Lundeen said. “Please know from the bottom of my heart that I would never condone this kind of behavior and I condemn white supremacists, violence, hate, hate groups and racism . . . The last thing that I can hope for is that the person that wrote these posts can step up and be held accountable for their actions.”
Lundeen’s full statement can be found here.
