In late January, campus RSO Illini Republicans gained notoriety for a now-edited post that included a stylized graphic matching a clip of a federal agent shooting and killing Alex Pretti.
In a matter of days, its Instagram account received more than a thousand comments — many of which were critical of the post — and some national media coverage, as well as support from free speech advocacy group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
FIRE tabled on campus Tuesday, arguing the Illini Republicans’ post was protected speech and that the University shouldn’t investigate the group. Some members of the Illini Republicans were behind a table with FIRE signage, but there were no identifying labels for the Republican RSO.
As The Daily Illini visited for several hours, the visitors interacting with the tabling event were mostly members of the two organizations and local media.
In an interview, Illini Republicans president Finn McIntosh, sophomore in LAS, defended both the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement post and other messaging that has been sent from the RSO’s X account. He also revealed that the RSO, which he says has around 10 consistent members, has received donations from or facilitated by the local GOP branch.
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On University relationship
When asked whether their group is in good standing with the Office of Student Engagement, which oversees student organizations, McIntosh said his RSO has not received a message of reprimand from either the OSE or the University more broadly.
“We haven’t received any sort of notice of, you know, we’re on thin ice or anything … even from the University,” McIntosh said.
McIntosh added that the University has been helping protect Illini Republicans from threats the RSO has faced after the uproar from the post.
“There have been some threats made upon me and my members,” McIntosh said. “Actually, the University has done more in support of us than against us. They’ve been making sure that our members are safe.”
On funding
McIntosh said Illini Republicans have not received RSO funds from the University since the beginning of this year.
A Reddit post that gained traction this week showed the club receiving money for guest speaker events in 2022 and alleged the RSO was still receiving funds.
SORF reports show that Illini Republicans have not received funds from the Student Organization Resource Fee program, which helps financially support RSOs, for the past several years.
In regards to funding for his RSO in the past year, McIntosh said much has come from the Champaign County Republican Party.
“Local GOP — that’s been our kind of source of funding,” McIntosh said. “We had an event, and they contributed to it.”
When asked how much was contributed, McIntosh said it was a “fair amount” but declined to disclose exactly how much, and continued to specify that they were private donations “facilitated” by the local GOP.
The Champaign County Republican Party could not be reached for comment.
In a statement to The DI on whether outside political contributions to RSOs are allowed, Ann Marie Morgan, director of student engagement, wrote RSOs “determine their own funding sources.”
Past statements
Although the recent ICE Instagram post has garnered the most attention, the RSO has posted several discriminatory statements on its X account. Among them is a post which alleges that those who celebrate holidays other than Christmas are not American.
The Dec. 17 post states that “Jews might say Happy Hanukkah, Hindus might say Happy Diwali, Africans might say Happy Kwanzaa, But Americans say Merry Christmas.”
McIntosh said that the Hanukkah statement was taken out of context despite being posted as a lone tweet.
According to McIntosh, “It’s more of an overarching principle we were emphasizing, that being an American should be the ultimate overarch.”
McIntosh continued to say that “We’re not saying that people who are Jewish or celebrate Kwanzaa are un-American or not American … We’re saying that if you were to think of a hierarchy, as in any nation, there are distinctly American principles.”
When asked if he was saying that Christianity is part of such principles, Mcintosh hesitated.
“Not necessarily,” McIntosh said. “We were advocating for the idea that saying ‘Merry Christmas’ is one of those principles. But we absolutely did not intend to exclude any of those mentioned groups from an American identity.”
Other tweets and retweets of Illini Republicans include calls for mass deportation, claims that the United States is being “raped,” and other messaging associated with the alt-right.
Among the accounts they follow is American Renaissance, described as “America’s premier source for race-realist thought,” which laments the country growing less white and promotes what it calls “white advocacy.”
“Blackpilled”
McIntosh said that his group is diverging ideologically from the larger chapter of Turning Point USA at the University, another conservative student group.
“Anything out of Turning Point absolutely does not represent, necessarily, what we believe,” McIntosh said.
He pointed to an increasing dissatisfaction with the Trump administration stemming from recent military forays in the Middle East, an “inability” to acquire Greenland as a territory and the handling of the Epstein files scandal.
McIntosh said he and his group were “blackpilled,” a term for “hopelessness” with roots in the online alt-right.
“Largely, there’s been more bad than good,” McIntosh said about the current administration.
McIntosh said he isn’t too concerned about whether the messaging of his RSO will affect his future prospects.
“It’s not like I’m on autopilot (when posting),” McIntosh said. “There’s always going to be something someone can dig up on you … I’m not too concerned.”
