Idaho House Representative Tammy Nichols spoke to SiriusXM Breitbart News Saturday host Matthew Boyle that Idaho’s state legislators are considering defunding Boise State University after revelations that the school’s new president, Marlene Tromp, is seeking to implement a leftist agenda at the university.
“[In] a lot of conservative areas, there’s this attack that’s going on — and we’re seeing things slipping in,” said Rep. Nichols on Saturday. “Idaho has been one of the fastest growing states in the nation, so we’ve been getting people from all over, moving to our state.”
“We had a new president for Boise State [Marlene Tromp] that was selected to take over,” continued Nichols, “and we got a hold of an email that was sent out after she took her position — changes she wanted to make [to the university] — and as we started looking through this email, we became really concerned.”
“Because a lot of the things that are being brought in are things that we’re seeing happening in other states,” said Nichols. “Diversity programs, and [racially] segregated graduations, and gender inclusive equity centers, things along those lines.”
“And we just had recently — within this last week — a report that came out,” she added, “they’re going to be remodeling the student union building, and they want to incorporate gender inclusive restrooms throughout the building and that their plan is to eventually do that throughout the whole campus.”
Boyle mentioned that the school’s student newspaper recently reported that the remodeling will also include “permanent prayer space for all.”
“So in other words,” said Boyle, “what they’re doing now is they’re going to having essentially Muslim prayer rooms on the campus of Boise State University?”
“And that’s what we’re saying,” said Nichols, “where is this stuff coming from? Why are we bringing this into [our school]? This has nothing to do with educating, this is political correctness running amok — why are we doing this? What are we catering this to?”
While the “prayer space” is being advertised as an area on campus that “will accommodate all religions,” the student newspaper does acknowledges that the new space had only been deemed a necessity after the “dramatic influx of new students from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait” and the “growth of the International Student Association and the Muslim Student Association.”
“As Muslims, you have to pray five times a day,” said Muslim Student Association president Muhammad Kamrin Latif to the school’s student newspaper. “So two to three prayers will be during school time.”