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Suppressing free speech for posterboard space?
After my morning class, I strolled around campus, replacing the College Republicans signs that had been torn down over the morning.
We put our signs on general-purpose sign boards, and people are free to tear them down to put other signs up.
I was replacing torn down signs in East Hall and was approached by a woman who said "If you inundate this board again, I will get you in trouble because I am faculty." I asked this faculty member what, exactly, I would be charged with and she said "littering" and stormed off.
She wouldn't give me her name.
As she stormed away, I told her not to suppress my speech. And I meant it.
Now, I'm not sure what is at issue. Either she was mad about the CRs using too much poster board space or she was mad that the CRs were USING poster board space at all due to some political bias. I'm not assuming the bias, but it is a possibility. Either way, I thought her attempted suppression of the CRs' free speech was ridiculous, so I put up my signs and immediately called the Dean of Students.
Luckily, the Dean assured me that the College Republicans were not being inappropriate with our signage and that there is no precedent, to her knowledge, that allows disciplinary action to be taken against students who put up lots of posters.
They can keep tearing down the posters, as is their right. But we'll keep replacing them, as is our right.
-Matt Hittle
Posted at 11:52AM Sep 23, 2008 by College Republicans in University of South Dakota | Comments[4]
Everyones' signs gets torn down, yo. It's one of the things about being at college, drunk people do funny things.
Posted by Xiao Xi on September 23, 2008 at 12:25 PM CDT #
They can keep tearing down the posters, as is their right. But we'll keep replacing them, as is our right.
Posted by Matt Hittle on September 23, 2008 at 01:51 PM CDT #
It's actually not their right. I'm pretty sure it's illegal to tear down stuff.
Posted by Xiao Xi on September 23, 2008 at 03:03 PM CDT #
It can't be. It's a general-use poster board. I know that disgruntled liberals/Democrats or people who just want space on the board will tear our stuff off. We'll just put it back up later that day.
Posted by Matt Hittle on September 23, 2008 at 03:30 PM CDT #