At the Senate meeting on Sept. 6, the Student Union approved a charter for the Tea Party Club at Brandeis.Mary-Alice Perdichizzi '12, the founder of the club and a member of the Worcester chapter of the Tea Party, wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that the club was founded in an effort to counter misconceptions about the Tea Party movement, which has sprung up across America in opposition to President Barack Obama's administration's policies.

"We intend to debate both current events and the facts of history, so that the principles of liberty that founded America can be given justice," she wrote.

Perdichizzi wrote that she worked with Jordan Kert '11, the vice president of the Tea Party Club at Brandeis and a fellow member of the Tea Party movement from New Hampshire, to begin the chapter on campus. She wrote that Kert contacted her after she was featured in a May 4 Justice article for her involvement with the Tea Party movement. She wrote that Kert helped her with the process of getting chartered by garnering signatures and presenting to the Student Union and was also instrumental in planning the new club's first meeting.

"He is a brilliant guy with fantastic ideas, and for his last year at Brandeis I plan on working together with him to make the Brandeis Tea Party Chapter an informative, bold, and earnest analysis of everything politics encompasses," she wrote.

Kert wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that, like Perdichizzi, he aims to educate the campus about the movement.

"I would like to see the tea party show Brandeis that true social justice resides in following the american constitution and free markets, not in redistributive economic policies and smiley face fascism," he wrote.

Perdichizzi wrote that she and her fellow club members will hold their first meeting the last week of September, during which they will show a screening of a documentary, Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West.

"It is a fascinating compilation of Muslim leaders, in their own words, provoking the domination of Islam as a theological system of government. It is very visual, documenting all of the terrorist attacks all over the world, and the propaganda that occurs from infancy in the Muslim world," Perdichizzi wrote. She further explained that the club members invited the Brandeis Zionist Alliance, and the Muslim Students Association to attend in order to foster discussion about the writing and implications of the Quran.

However, Perdichizzi emphasized that the club's activities will extend beyond film screenings, explaining in her e-mail that "we will have everything from screenings and discussions of documentaries to powerpoint presentations on historical events, discussions of current events, system of government, social issues, environmental issues, borders, national defense, economics-everything that is touched by the political arena is on the table."

Perdichizzi also wrote that she hoped to bring controversial speakers like political commentators and journalists such as Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to campus in an effort to bring alternative perspectives to campus.

Kert wrote that the club "would also like to counter the democratic attack campaign on the tea party, which shouldn't be too hard to achieve because we are neither ignorant or racist."

When asked about the response the club had received on campus, Perdichizzi wrote that the reception was generally a positive one. She explained that while "there were a few people who reacted poorly and were disrespectful," the Student Union received the club's mission positively.

"Most did not know who we were, but were eager to understand what we would be bringing to the Brandeis political atmosphere," wrote Perdichizzi.


-Fiona Lockyer contributed reporting.