In August 2012, Matthew Heimbach, then a senior at Towson University, formed a “White Student Union.” By April 2013, the first WSU had made national headlines and another was established at Indiana University. Earlier this month, an unofficial WSU appeared at Georgia State University, snatching headlines like its predecessors.
Georgia State’s WSU mission statement reads: “The White Student Union is here to unite white students to advocate for their interests and the interests of white people, while celebrating heritage, culture, promoting a sense of ‘white identity,’ and working in unison with other campus organizations to tackle issues that affect us all.”
Towson’s WSU reads: “The mission of the WSU is to create an avenue for people to participate in political, cultural, educational, and social events to celebrate European heritage.”
Recently, Heimbach spoke with the website vice.com, saying, “We stand for the positive love of our people, but also respect for everyone else … . That’s the key difference” between his group and groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Heimbach loathes Adolf Hitler and hates being labeled a “racist” or “white supremacist,” which does not surprise me. Most racists do these days.
In February, Heimbach and his WSU announced they were instituting night patrols on campus. The patrols targeted “black predators” and were justified as a response to the “black crime wave” on campus. It did not matter, as reported by Vice, that Towson’s campus crime rate was the lowest in 17 years. It did not matter that Towson was deemed Maryland’s safest public campus seven of the past 10 years. The WSU began its patrols in March, sending the media, black students and their allies into protest frenzy.
Patrick Sharp, the 18-year-old founder of Georgia State’s WSU, has a history of making racist remarks on the white supremacist website Stormfront.org. In addition to the epithets, he said aggressive Blacks should be beaten up and American schools should be re-segregated. Recently, he claimed these beliefs are behind him.
