This is a story that ran in the Sidelines 100th Anniversary Edition newspaper, a print edition meant to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Sidelines.
From segregation to McCarthyism to the Vietnam War, political polarization on college campuses is nothing new. But in the 21st century, amid an increasingly volatile political landscape in the United States, campuses reflect issues plaguing the country, and tensions rise among students.
There are several political organizations at MTSU, but some of the most widely known are the College Democrats, College Republicans, Turning Point USA, No Labels and the Young Democratic Socialists of America.
TPUSA regularly hosts guest speakers on campus, primarily conservative or right-wing Republicans. Occasionally, these guest speakers are met with backlash from other organizations or the general student population.
Tyler Robinson allegedly assassinated Charlie Kirk, a conservative podcaster and co-founder of TPUSA, while he was debating at Utah Valley University in September 2025. Kirk’s murder only increased animosity on campuses, said Jonathan Escobar, the president of MTSU’s College Democrats. The murder of a public speaker on a college campus was something new, and rhetoric from both the political left and right flooded the internet after the event.
Joshua Haymes, a Christian nationalist podcaster, visited MTSU in collaboration with the College Republicans in a similar fashion to how Kirk campuses, holding an open discussion on abortion, pornography and “transgender ideology.” The backlash that met Haymes and other conservative speakers on campus stems from a desire to provoke a reaction from students, both Escobar and Jacob Pagel, the vice president of No Labels, agreed.
“If a person comes with the intention of actual conversation or reasonable debate, 99% of people will be respectful back,” Pagel said. “But if you show up and want a reaction or to be hateful, it will be thrown right back at you.
Escobar also believed that right-wing speakers on campus are “clip-farming,” or exploiting a situation or filming something outrageous to share online to get attention.
“I think they wanted to have a few seconds of fame, and I think they wanted to clip it,” Escobar said. “You bring a speaker, you anger people, you get students to action, maybe irrational, … and then students get upset, they protest, and then their protest gets clipped. It gets taken out of context because these clip farmers, they won’t film issues where they lose.”
Emma Turner, a co-chair of YDSA, however, said that the backlash and tension that political clubs face on campus stems from a small group of people with extremist opinions.
“I think that calling it political polarization is, I mean, true, yes, but also kind of disingenuous,” Turner said. “Because ultimately, it’s a small group of people who have these very horrible and extreme ideas. And the truth is that most people don’t think like that, which you see very obviously whenever you see some person like that on campus. They’re ridiculed because they sound insane.”
Escobar, however, believes more people silently agree with extremists on campus, and even though students may not voice those agreements, that sympathy contributes to tension.
“I think there’s a small group of people that do it publicly,” Escobar said. “And I think there’s a bigger group that sympathizes with them but won’t do it publicly. And I think that’s also where the issue lies.”
Pagel said that a way to remedy tension among students is to learn to communicate and cohabitate peacefully.
“The remedy is a return to ‘you do your thing, and I’ll do mine,’” Pagel said. “We can disagree and still show each other common courtesy.”
Escobar and Turner agreed that there are some issues on which students will always fundamentally disagree, and that reconciliation and peaceful coexistence may be hard to achieve.
“I don’t think open discussion automatically lead to reconciliation,” Escobar said. “I even think that in some circumstances, if [issues] aren’t fixed in the background, an open conversation may might make people even more upset.”
Sidelines reached out to Ryan Robertson, president of MTSU’s College Republicans, and Jackson Swafford, president of MTSU’s TPUSA chapter, but both declined to comment.
To contact the news editor, email [email protected].
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Political tensions on campus are on the rise – MTSU Sidelines
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