Education · Binghamton, NY Metro · September 14, 2026
SUNY Broome, Whitman College Deny Recognition to Christian and GOP Clubs
What Alinsky tactic is being used
3 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 13
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
The Whitman student Senate did not debate a policy in the abstract — it put one identifiable person, the founder of the proposed Republican club, through roughly an hour of questions about Trump, ICE and Title IX, then voted 25-0 against him. A single applicant was picked, held in front of the body, made to answer for national political controversies he did not create, and then isolated by a unanimous tally. At SUNY Broome the same shape appears in the singling out of Campus Bible Fellowship, recognized every year since 1996 until this one, for a leadership requirement other groups' criteria apparently survive.
Counter-Rule 13 · Radical Solidarity
Stand publicly with whoever has been singled out. Isolation is the whole mechanism; refusing it disarms the tactic.
Solidarity is the answer to isolation, and it has to be public and specific. If a club on your campus is put through a recognition hearing, go and sit in the room, ask the student government for the meeting date and agenda in advance, and take your own notes on what was asked and how members voted. Afterward, ask officers of unrelated clubs — secular ones especially — to sign a short, factual letter saying the questioning went outside the recognition criteria; a Christian group defended only by Christians is still isolated.
Rule 4
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
Both sides of this story are working the gap between a written rule and actual practice. FIRE's letter reportedly argues the Whitman Senate broke its own bylaw barring discrimination by political belief, and ADF and Becket argue SUNY Broome's 'open access' policy is applied to a Bible study in a way it is not applied to other recognized groups. The institutions are being measured against their own books, and the case rests entirely on whether that measured gap is real.
Counter-Rule 4 · Radical Integrity
Close the gap between stated values and actual practice before anyone else finds it. This tactic only works where the gap is real.
Close your own gap first. Read your ministry's constitution this month and check that what it says about officer qualifications is exactly what you actually practice — no unwritten tests, no requirements you would be embarrassed to see quoted in a student newspaper. Keep the version on file with the school current, dated, and identical to the one you use, so that if a recognition fight comes, the only inconsistency on the table is the college's.
Rule 3
“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
The club founder at Whitman was not asked about his constitution, budget or meeting plan; he was pulled onto ground he had no charter to speak for — federal immigration enforcement, Title IX, a president's conduct — for an hour, where any answer he gave could be used against the application. That is the fight being moved off the applicant's competence and onto the questioners'.
Counter-Rule 3 · Preparation and Width
Prepare the unfamiliar ground before you are dragged onto it. "I don't know, I'll find out and come back" beats an improvised answer.
Prepare the unfamiliar ground before you are standing in it. Before any recognition hearing, print the recognition criteria and write out, in advance, the two-sentence answer to each criterion; then agree as a group that questions outside those criteria get a courteous 'our club doesn't take a position on that, and I'd rather not improvise one — can you point me to the criterion this goes to?' Ask beforehand, in writing, whether the body has a time limit on questioning and whether a written application is decided on the written record.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
Know where you stand
The free 4-minute assessment identifies your mountain and your institution’s capture phase — so alerts like this one arrive matched to where you actually stand.
Facing this yourself? Ask. Describe what is happening and get what the book, Scripture, and the law of your state say, with the exact words to use. Your first one is free.