The Biden administration is facing a lawsuit stemming from its support for a college program that linked conservatives to neo-Nazis.Â
The New York Post reported in May of this year that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provided $350,000 worth of funding in 2022 to the University of Dayton.
Those funds were disbursed through Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program to "develop and implement modules on the risks of and protective factors for radicalization to violence related to media literacy and online critical thinking for students."
The grant came following a seminar at the college's Human Rights Center which connected the Republican Party, the National Rifle Association, Fox News, and the Heritage Foundation to various hate groups.
1/🚨EXPOSED: @theMRC has uncovered a DHS anti-terrorism program that's been weaponized against conservatives.
80 grants & 39.6 million taxpayer dollars later, here's a look at how @JoeBiden & @SecMayorkas are outsourcing their efforts to conflate conservatives with terrorists🧵 pic.twitter.com/uw7Cdj0sPC
— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) May 25, 2023
They included a neo-Nazi terror group known as The Base and a white supremacist website known as The Daily Stormer.
According to the Post, the Heritage Foundation filed a lawsuit on Tuesday which alleges that DHS has failed to comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request about its funding of the program.
"DHS repeatedly failed to respond to Plaintiffs’ FOIA Request seeking information about how DHS views Heritage," Heritage Foundation attorneys Joseph Edlow and Samuel Dewey wrote in their filing.
"Plaintiffs are thus left with no remedy but this lawsuit to determine if DHS in facts [sic] believes Heritage, Fox News, and others to be worthy of being lumped in the same group as Nazis," they continued.
Edlow and Dewey explained that the Heritage Foundation seeks to discover whether it has "been targeted by DHS" given how the group was compared to "some of the most foul and noxious organizations in the United States."
The Heritage Foundation is not alone in looking for answers as South Carolina Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan and New York Republican Rep. Nick Langworthy wrote a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
.@RepLangworthy and I demand answers on the Biden Administration’s weaponization of the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program at @DHSgov. There is no reason for $352,109 taxpayer dollars to be given to the University of Dayton’s PREVENTS-OH program to label… pic.twitter.com/c5OvecNRUN
— Rep. Jeff Duncan (@RepJeffDuncan) July 7, 2023
[Rep. Langworthy] and I demand answers on the Biden Administration’s weaponization of the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program at [DHS]," Duncan wrote in a post on the social media platform previously known as Twitter.
"We must stop Biden’s abuse of taxpayer dollars to suppress his political opponents," the conservative lawmaker went on to insist.
