Dear Editor:

On Tuesday night the UMass Republican Club voted to secede from the Massachusetts Alliance of College Republicans (MACR), a statewide umbrella organization comprised of an elected executive board, whose main mission is to guide individual college republican chapters at schools throughout the Commonwealth.

Such a decision was made, in large part, because of spurious accusations leveled against President Brad DeFlumeri by MACR Chairman (and former UMass Republican Club Vice President) Brian Gwozdz of Boston College.

Gwozdz alleged heinous personal misconduct on the part of DeFlumeri, and yet, when pushed by the Center for Student Development could not produce corroboration for his claims. As our meeting played out, it became increasingly clear to us that the nature of the accusations made against President DeFlumeri were more fit for “Days of Our Lives” than prosecution in a criminal court- Gwozdz is content to turn college love triangles into fodder for his own personal power play. We firmly reject such nonsense and stand steadfastly in support of our President, Brad DeFlumeri.

Furthermore, Gwozdz gave us an ultimatum – impeach President DeFlumeri within a week or lose recognition by MACR. Such a notion borders on absurdity on so many levels – why should a successful, active, and well-funded RSO here at UMass answer or kowtow to royal decrees made by students at other schools?

In an effort to apparently bolster his claims, Gwozdz circulated a letter condemning DeFlumeri which, prima facie, appeared to by signed by a plethora of MACR officials. However, upon further examination at Tuesday night’s Republican Club meeting, one of MACR’s own top officials, Western Massachusetts Vice Chairman Becky Echevarria of Mt. Holyoke, indicated that the signatures on the letter were not exactly valid, and that many of the “undersigned” who appeared to be condemning DeFlumeri were curious as to why their names even appeared on such a letter.

This is a complicated matter that we don’t expect the UMass community to follow with immovable interest – we have a difficult enough time getting students to come to our events without protesting our every move.

However, we would like to note that while Tuesday night’s meeting admittedly produced just as many questions as answers, what is undeniably clear is that this University will without question continue to recognize the Republican Club as one of its oldest and most handsomely-funded political clubs.

We will continue to execute energetic and passionate conservative programming, aggressively recruit new members, and, undoubtedly continue to put more stock in the opinions of the UMass community and our own members than bitter bureaucrats absent-mindedly sitting in Boston offices.

We mark our newfound independence from MACR as a step toward localizing our efforts to bring a conservative message to this community and the Pioneer Valley, while rejecting the efforts of a state organization that demands an independently operating UMass registered student organization turn into one of its many slavish puppets.