Chairman of the Tennessee Young Republicans and former Belmont University study body President Stevie Giorno recently joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss how students at Belmont University bullied him during the time he served as the school’s student body president.
While serving as Belmont University’s student body president in 2020, Giorno (pictured above) acknowledged the Fourth of July holiday with a post on Instagram that read, “Proud to be an American, celebrating the sacrifice of those that gave their all so that we may have freedoms and liberties intended for us on this day in 1776.”
One day later, an online petition was created, calling for Giorno to be removed from the university’s Student Government Association presidency, calling his Instagram post “covertly racist.”
During his interview with Leahy, Giorno said members of the College Democrats at Belmont University were behind the plot to remove him from the presidency.
Giorno also said the risk management chair of his fraternity threatened to “destroy him” if he didn’t take down his Fourth of July post and endorse the Black Lives Matter group.
“It was very serious. You know, I was part of the only fraternity at Belmont. And I was told a few days after I had posted, they said, “you have not endorsed the Black Lives Matter organization.” Which I refused to, and I still am very proud to say I never did. They said, “if you do not endorse that organization and say that you support the group, we’re gonna do whatever it takes to destroy you.”… It was the risk management chair of our fraternity, who also happened to be my big. He told me that if I didn’t take my post down, if I didn’t post that black square on my page they were gonna remove me from the fraternity and they were gonna label me a racist,” Giorno said.
Giorno added that when classes started up again, the university’s administration “made it very difficult” for him to be on campus.
“Initially, the school administration did not want me to be on campus, you know, they made it very difficult,” Giorno explained. “They didn’t want to be you know, they were hosting the presidential debate a few months later and they didn’t want a bad headline. And so, anytime I was on campus, a campus security officer would escort me from class to class. I had to be dropped off because they said that they couldn’t guarantee that my vehicle wouldn’t be damaged, you know, tires slashed.”
Giorno said when he would attempt to engage in a conversation with the students labeling him as a “racist,” they “did not want to listen.”
“Those people did not want to listen. They wanted to be told that they were right,” Giorno said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Stevie Giorno” by Tennessee Young Republicans. Background Photo “Belmont University” by Lahti213. CC BY-SA 4.0.
