Wyoming Rep. Scott Smith was one of about two dozen members of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus who advocated for the right to marry children younger than 16 during the 2023 Wyoming Legislative session.
Opinion
Scott argued that there are kids in his district who are “pretty mature” and whose families don’t want the government interfering with their personal decisions.
Thankfully, the Legislature disagreed with the Freedom Caucus and banned child marriage in our state. But now the Freedom Caucus is coming to the University of Wyoming to promote its agenda. As a student here, I find that deeply concerning.
The Freedom Caucus has gone so far as to endorse candidates for UW’s student government. This endorsement is ironic given that the Freedom Caucus spends its time in the Legislature attacking UW. They routinely sponsor proposals to cut funding for colleges and programs that allow our university to be competitive nationally and enrich our educational experience.
It is telling that the very people who would rather we shut our doors by voting against our budget chose to endorse students who will follow their lead in undermining what makes UW an inviting and inclusive place.
The Freedom Caucus, along with a handful of far-right senators, has led the efforts to defund our diversity, equity, and inclusion office and any DEI programming on campus — work that supports our student veterans and other groups that have more than earned the support of our university and state government.
While the Freedom Caucus relies on rhetoric from Washington D.C. extremists, the reality is that DEI functions to support research that informs our understanding of our aging population, the impact of climate on suicidality and more. DEI protects women’s sports through Title IX and our religious freedom through Title VI. It supports our many brilliant international students in finding a community of fellow cowboys. DEI is built into our state motto, “Equal Rights.”
The University of Wyoming is a leading research institution for industries like the fossil fuel sector, and DEI helps attract the best students into our engineering departments. But the Freedom Caucus wants to shut all this down and diminish the caliber of students we attract.
Now, they are endorsing candidates for student government who they think will support them in their extremist project.
The Freedom Caucus advocates for far more than the “freedom” to marry children. They also vote against vital programs that would benefit young people across the state battling suicidality — in a state with a perpetually high suicide rate. The Freedom Caucus voted against the state’s 988 suicide hotline, an important tool that helps people across Wyoming get connected with community mental health care. They also voted against bills that would help fund mental health programs and suicide prevention efforts for young people across the state through their K-12 public schools.
Make no mistake, the Freedom Caucus is meddling in our student elections because they are “building a bench” for tomorrow so that one day people who share their radical ideology will be running for the Wyoming Legislature and even U.S. Congress. They are grooming new politicians who will further their platform of defunding the government, the University of Wyoming, and installing institutions in their place that limit your freedoms and drive more youth out of our state, or worse, out of their lives.
Students at the University of Wyoming should reject these politicians meddling in our lives because, in addition to their fringe ideas, they have no clue what makes our university great.
Thank you, Mr. Ewalt and WyoFile, for this excellent reporting from the ground. Keep up the excellent work, Mr. Ewalt – it is informed, thoughtful, insightful views like yours that can give us hope in your generation!
Fantastic Article! Keep up the great reporting!
Tanner Ewalt is just salty about their corrupt and failed presidential run. I see nothing wrong with students at the university trying to bridge the gap between the state legislature and the university. Additionally, the author would not have written this article if a far-left legislator had endorsed an ASUW candidate!
The Freedom Caucus needs to stay out of the politics at UW. Their interference with the DEI program, and the campus reaction to their action should be a lesson to them.
Students need to explore their political ideology. This article gave me hope that UW is a place where free thought is encouraged.
The Freedom Caucus is not about freedom. They only want to push their agendas onto the University of Wyoming. Butt out Freedom Caucus, your ideals are not about freedom but about your views on it. Child marriage should be banned, it allows child predators the freedom to abuse young women.
I am a UW graduate, and over the last 20 years UW has gone off the liberal cliff. DEI is nothing more than an extreme liberal program to destroy the values on which this country was founded. The legislature has at their hands one of the best ways to reign in the university and bring it back to the conservative school it once was, and that is by controlling the purse strings. As for the liberal whiner students, if they don’t like it they can go back to their liberal bastions to attend school.
Well i was born and raised in Casper, dont know if id call that a liberal bastion. I just dont want folks that dont know vetrans affairs, religous protection and title IX are all parts the “woke” DEI they just tried to ban to ve incharge of our one University. Also i thought qe were all about free expression? Now i need to leave for expressing myself freely? How do you square thst circle?
20 years ago says it all.
Angry white middle aged people should stay in their lane and turn off fox news.
Well said, Chuck. I second that.
Hi John, quick question, are you saying that diversity, equity and inclusion are not values on which our country was founded?
Thank goodness for Tanner Ewalt taking the time to write this clear warning. The ‘Freedom’ Caucus is all about small government unless they can force their brand of crazy into our lives. The ‘Freedom’ Caucus is all about local control unless they can force us all to their brand. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Let’s get these people who have been run out of other states to move on from here. Stop creating division in a state that has been known in the past as a place of neighbor helping neighbor and strong capability not victims and fear mongers.
Timely opinion piece by Mr.Ewalt. I just returned from visiting my son on campus last weekend and noticed some candidate signs for the upcoming ASUW election. In reading one of them it had a lot of the “we’re the victim” kind of statements and I made the comment to my son “How do you say you’re far right without coming our and saying you’re far right”. My son confirmed the students far right affiliations, which is fine, it’s a campus election and all groups have the right to run. I know that various campus groups will endorse certain candidates and the idea that it works like a microcosm of the real world…which is all good.
But I totally agree that people from outside the groups, especially statewide political groups should stay out of it. Are they going to start pumping in dark money or creating a super PAC?
The Freedom Caucus, I bet ,half of the people came from other states and are trying to destroy Democracy in this country. Freedom, is not what they are for. If this group continue harassing the students at UW, these students will start enrolling in other colleges, in other states. Therefore Wyoming loses more money for their state, if you want to consider the monetary, then you need to compromise, what a thought. There’s an interesting Documentary , God and Country, Christian Nationalism.
The “Freedom Caucus” needs to butt out of student leadership decisions at UW. Their motives, as illustrated by Rep. Scott Smith’s advocacy for allowing girls under 16 to marry, are deeply rooted in ultra-right religious thinking . There is no place for this corrupt and short-sighted thinking in Wyo.
I think it may take a week for me to process the idea that child marriage is something the legislature should make legal because people don’t want the government interferring with their personal decisions. Oh my god. To say ‘cognitive dissonance’ is redundant.
So proud of our smart, savvy UW students. Keep challenging the weirdos.
That’s what they do-meddle. They meddle with your kids, your wives, your daughters, and your mothers. They want to meddle in your bedroom. What’s it going to take for you “independent” Wyoming folks to vote them out of office. Shameful.
The members of the TPUSA sit at a table littered with buttons and slogans espousing freedom, but when you talk to them they express nothing but disdain for living free. This crew is intent on passing laws so that the American people will live like they think you should live and their vision aligns more with the Taliban than an American.
Mr. Ewalt expresses that they are “”building a bench”‘ for tomorrow” and I take issue with that as this group has a unique track record for vaulting students directly into high levels of Wyoming Government. In fact, US Freedom Caucus member Harriet Hageman’s nephew, Joe Rubino, is the Chief Policy Director for Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray. Joe Rubino went from cheer leading TPUSA in 2021 at University of Wyoming to a top job in the State. That stratospheric rise has emboldened the current members of the UW’s TPUSA that they too can pass and enforce laws that will force all Wyomingites to live their shallow way of life.
I have spent some time at the University of Wyoming and the students that join TPUSA, or those that fight them, are a small number of students that do not necessarily represent the vast majority of students, but they are influencing which students stay or want to stay in Wyoming post graduation. The rise of TPUSA and the Freedom Caucus is certainly driving the best students from the State, while encouraging the worst to stay in Wyoming.
“In fact, US Freedom Caucus member Harriet Hageman’s nephew, Joe Rubino, is the Chief Policy Director for Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray. Joe Rubino went from cheer leading TPUSA in 2021 at University of Wyoming to a top job in the State.” Can you say nepotism. I’m pretty sure that Mr Rubino would have been granted a top job in the State regardless of his affiliation with or without TPUSA. Having said that, I’m not sure what TPUSA has to do with Wyoming’s Freedom Caucus interference in campus politics, which is what this article is about. I thought it was well written.