A Progressive Republican Club? Students at the Progressive College Republican Club plan to change perceptions of conservatives with a more socially progressive platform.

The The Diamondback: The University of Maryland’s Independent Student Newspaper reports.

Senior political science major Bobby Lindsey is determined to change the Republican Party’s image, one issue at a time.

The Progressive College Republican Club, which Lindsey founded last year, is a student political organization that seeks to revamp the perception of the Republican Party by advocating socially progressive issues such as LGBT rights, police policy reforms and environmental awareness.

Lindsey said he started the group to show that Republicans can be fiscally conservative and also support social issues often met with opposition from the right.
“We want to let people know that there are Republicans who are reasonable and moderate,” he said. “We are the first type of club like this anywhere that is geared towards college Republicans who feel there needs to be a change in terms of social values that are often negated by the Republican Party.”

This semester, the club’s main initiative is forming a student task force to develop recommendations for police policy reform in light of the past year’s events that unfolded in Ferguson, Missouri. A group of student organizations, including Students for Liberty and the university’s NAACP chapter, have already joined the task force, Lindsey said.