Members of our university group occasionally suggest that we, as a group, should support certain causes that are gaining momentum at our school (these include Black Lives Matter, a solidarity movement for the Hong Kong protests, and a movement to abolish Greek Life at our school).
My reservation is that members or potential members could feel alienated from our club and even EA in general if they disagree with the movements that our university group supports. Also, these movements aren't conventional EA causes.
On the other hand, refusing to support these movements feels like we are implying EA is somehow above these movements, which seems elitist. Supporting these movements could also give our group valuable publicity and sympathy from those who support them. Additionally, there is a strong case to be made that movements like Black Lives Matter and the Hong-Kong protests have a positive impact, so it's weird that we would refuse to support them.
How should university groups and other local groups deal with such dilemmas?
I agree that this is a difficult question, and that there are difficult considerations that you might need to carefully balance.
You should probably talk to other campus group organizers, ideally ones similar enough to your position (eg, EA campus group organizers in similar universities, or non-EA campus group organizers at your university) for a well-rounded take.
For example, I intuitively agree with Khorton's answer. Unfortunately my understanding from talking to a small number of campus organizers is that a neutral stance, for political movements that 90%+ of the student campus supports, will be seen as implicitly political (and not on the "right" side).
My personal impression is that campus activism/campus politics moves very fast, especially in America, to the point that those of us with only a handful of years out of school are almost unqualified to talk about such matters.
Good point. I'll bring this up with other group leaders.