Sitting in my psychology class at the University of California Berkeley, I felt my hands clam up and my body tense as my professor initiated a conversation about the White Student Unions that have recently popped up on Facebook over the past few months.

The news that a freshman has founded a White Student Union at Georgia State University has come across like a harmless college prank. But the Southern Poverty Law Center is keeping the White Student Union on its watch list because of its founder's ties to white supremacist groups.

The white student union, founded recently at Georgia State University (GSU) in Atlanta by student Patrick Sharp, 18, is intended to "provide a place for like-minded White students to come together and not only celebrate their common European/Euro-American cultures, but to discuss issues that affect white people in the world today," according to its website.