Breitbart News tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos in May 2016, YAL National Field Director Ty Hicks urged chapter leaders not to invite the conservative firebrand to speak at their events. This came as a result of the YAL chapter at the University of California, Santa Barbara defying a regional field director's instructions to prohibit Yiannopoulos from promoting presidential candidate Donald Trump when he spoke at the university – which she believed could jeopardize the national organization's 501(c)3 non-profit status. The event proceeded with Yiannopoulos asking audience members to address a cardboard cutout of Trump, and chapter members wearing pro-Trump clothing as they hand-carried Yiannopoulos into the event. YAL's president at the time, Cliff Maloney, said Hicks' post did not represent an official YAL position and that "our relationship with Milo remains unchanged." The group's association with Yiannopoulos and others caused Wichita State University to reject the formation of a YAL chapter on campus. In February 2017 at Students for Liberty's International Students for Liberty Conference (ISFLC) in Washington, D.C., several students affiliated with YAL chapters organized to bring white supremacist Richard Spencer to the hotel where the conference was being held. Spencer and the YAL chapter members were confronted by conference attendees and were removed from the conference. In 2018, the Iowa State YAL chapter invited the white nationalist figure Nick Fuentes to speak at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. A few YAL members and chapter leaders have been involved in the American Identity Movement, formerly known as Identity Evropa. In June 2019, Right Wing Watch ran an article noting that university student Richard Golgart Jr. was an "officer" of the University of Nevada, Reno's YAL chapter. An article later in the year by the school newspaper, The Nevada Sagebrush, confirmed the story. An exposé by Sludge found that another Identity Evropa member, Derek Magill, served as president of the YAL chapter at the University of Michigan. The same report also revealed that Alex Witoslawski, another well-known white nationalist activist, "spent six months as the Illinois state chair of Young Americans for Liberty." On January 8, 2021, several women came out with allegations of sexual misconduct while at YAL. As a result of the allegations, YAL subsequently announced that Cliff Maloney had been terminated from employment within the organization effective immediately after a decision by the board of directors. On April 26, 2022, Cliff Maloney was arrested and arraigned in Pennsylvania