A conservative student organization is coming to the defense of former White House official Marc Short as some of his new colleagues and students at the University of Virginia attempt to revoke his appointment as a faculty member.
As The Daily Wire reported Monday, Short announced he would leave his position as White House Legislative Director to join the university’s Miller Center, which focuses on presidential history and public policy. In response, nearly 2,000 faculty, students, and alumni have signed a petition declaring, “Stop UVA From Hiring Trump Official Marc Short.”
Short has an impressive resume including serving as Chief of Staff for Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and as a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security. One of his positions includes serving as director of Young Americans Foundation (YAF), a student-focused conservative organization that has campus chapters on hundreds of campuses.
The University of Virginia’s YAF chapter has now come to the defense of both Short and the administrators that hired him.
“University of Virginia Young Americans for Freedom—UVA YAF—stands with Marc Short,” begins their recently released statement. “We are extremely disappointed with the closemindedness and intolerance of leftists at UVA, including staff, professors, and administrators.”
The chairman of the chapter, Kevin McMahon, describes Short as a “stand-up man, a patriot, and a fantastic conservative,” adding, “Marc Short represents the conservative principles and ideas of the students of UVA Young Americans for Freedom, who are also students of the University of Virginia.”
The statement condemns the double standard that conservatives face in higher education and calls the belief that Short should not be hired “insulting to the conservative students of UVA YAF as well as those students who are too afraid to speak out of fear of enduring similar attacks from the Left.”
The statement concludes by calling on the president and the president-elect of UVA to support the hire of Short.
As the statement notes, this same YAF chapter was forced to file a lawsuit against UVA before being allowed to become an official club on campus.