May 13, 2004

On May 3, President Bush came to speak in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Several students from Kalamazoo College who had tickets to the event were not allowed in because members of the Kalamazoo College Republicans told the security detail that those students were opposed to Bush.

This story, broken by David Corn on The Nation's website, is one of several instances of political suppression at Bush rallies this season, which I'm chronicling in McCarthyism Watch. (See "An 'FUGW' Sign Can Get You Arrested.")

Ted Hufstader, a sophomore at Kalamazoo College, says he and a friend lined up at the Kalamazoo Chamber of Commerce on April 30 and waited for two hours in the rain to get tickets to the event.

"We showed them our photo IDs, and we gave them the addresses of the people we wanted to bring along, and we got our tickets," Hufstader recalls.

On the day of the event, Hufstader and six others with tickets approached Wings Stadium. The group, which included members who had engaged in nonviolent protests, easily made it through one checkpoint, he recalls. But then the trouble started.

"There was another checkpoint," he says, "and as we got closer to that one, we saw a member of the Kalamazoo College Republicans, and he said, 'How did you get tickets?' Another member of the Kalamazoo College Republicans saw us and asked the same thing. So then security staffers sort of surrounded us. They told us we had failed the background checks and had been identified as potential threats by volunteers. They said we were on some Secret Service list, and if we didn't leave, we'd be arrested. The police came up and said, 'Come on, let's go.' We didn't want to get arrested, so they escorted us out."

Hufstader was most troubled by the actions of his fellow college students.

"We were confused and hurt that the college Republicans had pointed us out," he says. "What truly frightened us is that we were blacklisted by our peers. It really infuriated us."

Julia VanAusdall, who was also denied entrance, tells a similar story. "The event staff told us we were on a list of potential threats," she says. "So we kept asking to see it, and they wouldn't show it to us. The main reason we were kicked out is because the key College Republicans told them we could create a disturbance."

VanAusdall denies that was the intent of the group. "All we wanted to do was to go hear Bush speak," she says. "We had no intention of causing a disturbance. We had an international student with us, and if we had caused a disturbance we could have endangered her stay here."

She says she is upset at the behavior of the College Republicans. "It was our college classmates who were the ones who got us kicked out," she says.

The president of Kalamazoo College, James Jones, made no formal comment on the case. Jim VanSweden, director of college communications, says, "The rally was a Republican Party private affair held on a private site off-campus. The college did not sponsor or endorse the rally in any way."

VanSweden acknowledged the role of some of College Republicans, however. "Some of the Kalamazoo College volunteers were given the responsibility of identifying potential protesters," he says, "and at least one of them performed this duty (in the case of the students asked to leave the rally) based on his recollection that some of these students had previously protested Republican positions on various issues."

VanSweden adds that at least one member of the College Republicans balked at this "duty" and asked that the students be allowed to enter the stadium.

The Kalamazoo College Republicans refused to comment on the issue. (On the group's web site, it lists as its first goal "to bring political awareness to students of Kalamazoo College.")

"You should contact the Bush campaign on that," says Dan Carlson, president of the Kalamazoo College Republicans. "They wanted to comment on it. They're based in Lansing."

The Michigan Republican Party in Lansing did not return calls for comment.

And at Bush-Cheney '04 national headquarters, spokesperson Scott Stanzel did not return my phone calls.