The Western Culture Club has invited Jared Taylor, a white supremacist and eugenics advocate, to speak at Colorado Mesa University (CMU) at the end of March. Business Administration student Maxwell Applebaugh is the president of this club and was behind the invitation.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Taylor has been an activist in the eugenics and white supremacist movement since the early 90s. He is the founder of the New Century Foundation and editor for their now discontinued magazine “American Renaissance.”

“Blacks and whites are different. When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears,” wrote Taylor in a 2005 publication of American Renaissance. He is known for intimately engaging with members of recognized hate groups like David Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan and known anti-semite.

“I’ve known about Jared Taylor for quite a while now. I’ve read his book, “White Identity,” and I found it interesting, to say the least. I know that Jared Taylor is a very controversial figure, that’s sort of to me, that’s the appeal of them,” said Applebaugh.

Instructor of Business Georgann Jouflas is the advisor for this club. It’s been reported that the precise nature of Western Culture Club was concealed from her when initially approached to advise.

Applebaugh has been associated with two other clubs on campus – Turning Point USA at CMU (TPUSA-CMU) and Uncensored America at CMU (UA-CMU). He said he was forced to form his own club because they did not want to be associated with the event.

“It arose out of a necessity for this event because the old people weren’t pro free speech enough,” said Applebaugh. The Western Culture Club seems to have formed in less than a week. Their Presence page went live between March 4 and March 7.

Orionna Byrd is a woman of color and student in the hospitality management program at CMU. She feels that the presence of white supremacists and Taylor on campus is a threat to the safe environment that has developed for minorities.

“This is very problematic and you’re bringing very harmful people onto campus, and because we have white supremacists on campus, it is not safe for minorities,” said Byrd.

Applebaugh is a paid investigator for Campus Reform which according to their website is a “conservative watchdog in the nation’s higher education system.” His profile on that website lists him as the secretary for TPUSA-CMU and the president of UA-CMU.

Since March 4, 2025, UA-CMU has taken down their Presence page. TPUSA-CMU addressed the speaker coming to campus in a recent post on their Instagram.

“Turning Point USA has no affiliation with the Western Culture Club and do not support [this speaker’s] ideas,” read the caption on a picture of the flyer for the event. The officers listed for TPUSA-CMU on Presence have been removed but were listed as recently as March 4, 2025.

The club claims to have no affiliation with Western Culture Club or Applebaugh, however Applebaugh lists himself as the secretary of TPUSA-CMU and their club Instagram has several photos featuring Applebaugh as a member and evidence that he attended many of their events.

Until recently, their Instagram featured a photograph of Elon Musk’s controversial salute that he gave during President Trump’s inauguration. It has been associated with white supremacist and neo-nazi ideology akin to Taylor’s work.

Vice President of Student Services Jody Diers, has received complaints from students about TPUSA-CMU’s inflammatory, racist and derogatory behavior on campus. They frequently table and take polls with questions like “Are some cultures better than others?” and “Can a man become a woman?”

Recently, they tabled and asked a yes or no question regarding support for mass deportations. When a hispanic student, who will remain anonymous for their safety, voted that they do not support mass deportations said they were subject to hateful speech, attacks and racism from TPUSA-CMU. The student reported her experience to Diers and this was her response:

“I just walked over to see what was going on. I visited with the three students manning the table and talked about what they do. They belong to the Turning Point club through Student Life.  They had reserved the space through the proper channels with the university,” wrote Diers. She went on to say that they were protected by CMU’s free speech policy.

The student indicated feeling unsafe because of the racist rhetoric and felt ignored by Diers’ response. This student has decided to transfer schools because they do not feel that CMU cares about their well-being.

The office of Student Services is currently experiencing turnover of their most senior positions. Diers is retiring at the end of the semester and the Director of Campus Safety and Student Conduct, Pua Uta, quietly left his position a few months ago.

In response to this club-sponsored event, President John Marshall issued a campus-wide statement. He indicated that the school will not intervene in hosting Taylor because it would infringe on first amendment rights. Marshall indicated that “the speaker’s” values do not align with his own, but the email did not specifically state which views he was addressing or who the speaker was.

Associate Professor of History Dr. Vincent Patarino hosts the Holocaust Awareness Week on campus. The upcoming event in April will mark the 22nd year in a row. Denial of the extreme events during WWII is a typical part of neo-nazi ideology. When he received the email, he had no idea what it was about.

“I don’t know if that was necessarily a useful move, again, because the context is not there,” said Patarino.

He said the letter left him and his colleagues guessing about the situation because Marshall’s language was too vague. He feels that if CMU is going to promote civil discourse on campus that this event, and all others like it, should be required to give time for public comment and questions.