FEATURED
OPINION
University of Mary Washington’s College Republicans chapter hosted Nick Freitas for a speaking event on Tuesday, refusing to be intimidated by threats of doxing or attempts to erase our messages.
I’m affiliated with the UMW College Republicans, and the backlash I’ve documented surrounding our event highlights yet another case of left-wing agitators failing to silence students who don’t settle within their echo chamber.
Freitas, a conservative influencer, is a former Green Beret who served in Virginia’s House of Delegates from 2013 to 2026. Recently, his podcast has given a lot of coverage to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions and protests in Minneapolis.
Nearly two weeks before his speaking event, an anonymous student called for people on campus to “dox” members of UMW College Republicans. The post appeared on Yik Yak, an anonymous social media platform that’s popular on my campus, and our chapter took screenshots.
“i don’t f****** care, dox the a****** who think this way and tell me the names of the people who painted the rock. who [sic] call humans ‘illegals’. f*** [sic] them all,” the comment stated.
That comment was in response to our chapter painting a message to advertise Freitas’ talk on the Spirit Rock, a boulder overlooking a high-traffic route on campus that clubs often paint to promote their events.
And our message was painted over within hours (pictured), an attempt to stop students from learning about our upcoming event.
This wasn’t the first time something like this happened at UMW during my time here.
Last semester, someone used Yik Yak to ask others to “dox” members of UMW’s Students for Life of America chapter for inviting Lydia Taylor-Davis to speak there, as I previously wrote for The College Fix.
Ahead of our College Republicans event, students also planned a protest in a field outside the university building where it was being held.
Of course, protesting is a constitutional right, but some students seemed to have wanted the protest to be more disruptive. For example, a call to action that included “make some noise!” and “show that you will not stand for his racist rhetoric” was posted on Instagram two days after the rock was repainted.
Thankfully, the protest at Ball Circle didn’t disrupt Freitas’ talk.
Throughout the two-hour event, Freitas answered questions about ICE, and his support for the election integrity SAVE Act, school choice, and artificial intelligence.
He also encouraged the audience to show him how any of his rhetoric was racist. When a student in the audience claimed that nobody organizing the protest said that it was, Freitas politely referred to that “call to action” post on Instagram. The student left the event crying.
When a UMW College Republicans leader asked Freitas why he would encourage more students to get involved with the chapter, Freitas said that acting with courage often will inspire backlash, but it also will also inspire more courage — something cowardice cannot do.
Most of the students who showed up to either event Tuesday behaved like adults. However, the anonymity that social media provides can erode accountability and encourage dangerous levels of entitlement. It’s also cowardly.
The Left isn’t entitled to making an echo chamber out of college campuses — especially ones that taxpayers fund, such as mine. Yet, many students still live in fear of expressing their opinions.
But, as our event showed, campus cancel culture fails in the face of courage. The more that conservative students press forward with hosting these types of events, despite the threats and hostility, the more that others will find the courage to do the same.
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