Students protest Granholm’s visit Thursday

Before Gov. Jennifer Granholm spoke in the Charles V. Park Library Auditorium Thursday morning, protesters outside urged people to not “drink her Kool-Aid,” and instead brought their own.

Campus Conservatives handed out flyers, held up signs and chanted outside both entrances to the library, and had set up a table outside the main entrance with a pitcher of Kool-Aid, and was handing it out to passersby.

The Conservative said they handed out more than 500 flyers, from 7 a.m. until the beginning of the speech.

Wendy Day, an alumna protesting with the Campus Conservatives, was also handing out flyers that said “Don’t Drink The Kool-Aid!”

“I’m not sure how she can spin anything. Unless you ‘drink the Kool-Aid,’ and buy into the party line, I don’t see how you could buy into anything she says,” said Day, who identified herself as a “non-partisan protester.” “There’s so much government waste, and the political establishment is protecting it, on both sides of the aisle.”

Campus Conservatives Vice President of Recruitment Evan Agnello said the main issue they were protesting is the idea of taxing Michigan residents, college students included, to provide college students with the Michigan Promise Scholarship.

“The actual policy that we’re protesting is her idea of raising taxes to bring back the Michigan Promise Scholarship,” the Troy junior said. “Raising taxes to give out a scholarship is like taking money out of your left pocket to put it in your right.”

Agnello said the group also disagreed with the decision that Granholm would not be fielding questions from students.

While the Campus Conservatives protested the event and Granholm’s stance on the Promise Scholarship, the College Democrats demonstrated about 20 feet away, holding up signs supporting Granholm and the Promise.

“We want the Promise to be reinstated,” said Alex Teska, Trenton junior and advocacy co-chairwoman for College Democrats. “We believe that through the right taxes, like the one-cent tax on water bottles, it can be done. I know a lot of students are relying on this money to make ends meet.”