Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles

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The Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP) is the student arm of the Unification movement of Sun Myung Moon.

The group attracted controversy, with opponents deriding it as a 'front group' for the Unification Church, a situation which statements by official CARP leaders that CARP was not "affiliated" with the Unification Church did nothing to dispel. Strictly speaking, CARP is a separate legal entity from the church, so neither body is an affiliate of each other in the way that Boston's Channel Four (WBZ-TV) is an affiliate of NBC. But with the leadership and nearly all the membership of CARP being church members, and the aims of both bodies being nearly identical, some church and CARP members found the attempt to distance CARP from the church unsettling, or at best, pointless.

1 Criticism
2 References
3 See also
4 External Links

[edit] Criticism

CARP has been known to actively recruit on various campuses. Some^{[attribution needed]} claim that the group is not up front about their beliefs and practices with outsiders until a person is completely dedicated to the group. Members have been known to use emotional attachment and praise as a recruitment technique. It has been said^{[attribution needed]} that the Unification Church encourages members to mislead the public when convenient, including concealing the disbursement of money attained through the selling of flowers and candles.^[1]

According to David Crandell, Director of Student Activities at the University of Southern California, "CARP has been accused of being one of those groups that preys on college students".^[2] Crandell also reported that "I don't care about the content of their beliefs, but when they are deceptive in their recruiting or use psychological manipulation to keep people involved, then we've got problems."^[2] CARP had its student group status at USC revoked in 1994 and according to Crandell, The Office of Student Activities would probably not allow the group to be active on campus if they requested to be reinstated.^[2]

The Office of Student Life at the University of California, Berkeley has received multiple complaints about CARP.^[3] A Berkeley student who attended a CARP event at the request of a CARP member, is reported as saying "If I would have known, I would never have shown up ..... they were very nice and I think they were sincere, but I also think I was misled."^[4] In part of an extensive description of the group's activities, a student summarizes in detail: "They exploit loneliness and shyness to create an artificial sense of family. Through lavishing copious praise upon students with a low self-esteem, they manage to recruit some of our most vulnerable peers, ruining lives with great potential."^[5]