9. Censorship of Posters

RECOMMENDATIONS:

A recent Montana case has established that posters on bulletin boards are protected free speech. All colleges should prevent the destruction of fliers and similar material based on viewpoint.

Introduction:

The censorship of campus postings wrongly limits what can be said, but it commonly happens. Hundreds of college and university presidents have signed a statement on “intimidation-free campuses.” While this statement attracted controversy for its one-sided claim that Jewish and pro-Israeli students faced the primary threat from intolerance on American campuses, few paid attention to its claim that “posters and Web sites displaying libelous information or images have been widely circulated, creating an atmosphere of intimidation” and such posters and website “will not be tolerated.” While threats and vandalism must be stopped, the statement that colleges need to ban “posters and websites” that supposedly display “libelous information or images” is a severe threat to academic freedom.

(a) College of William and Mary: a student who put up a poster about her rape at a fraternity house had it taken down by campus officials because it named the rapist, who had been expelled for the attack. Administrators apologized and allowed the posters put back up when federal officials informed the college that federal privacy laws could not prohibit a rape victim from discussing her attack.

(Chronicle of Higher Education, Oct. 14, 2002; SPLC, Oct. 29, 2002)

(b) DePaul University: DePaul students Giuseppe Alcoff, Matt Muchowski, and Justin Datta were banned from running for student government in May 2003 because they posted fliers which had been prohibited by the election committee due to political statements. According to Muchowski, “we wanted to run for student government to make some changes around our university. We wanted to kick coca-cola off our campus because they kill union organizers in Colombia, we wanted to make the Patriot Act invalid on our campus because it invades our privacy, and we wanted to help prevent sexual assault at DePaul.” Because the fliers advocated political positions, they were banned. The students were told before a debate on student government, “Seeing as how student government is the voice of the students at DePaul University, any criticism of student government will be taken as slander against the entire student body of DePaul, and the offending candidate will be written a warning.”

(Chicago.indymedia.org, May 10, 2003)

(c) Harvard University: After an anti-abortion student group complained that its posters showing a fetus were being destroyed, the Undergraduate Council passed a resolution calling for the College to punish students who destroy posters. The Council also promised to reimburse any group for destroyed poster. Later that month, an Undergraduate Council member who supported the resolution, Thomas Mucha, admitted to ripping down posters he found "obscene and offensive." The posters, for the Freedom in America Policy Group, showed a naked couple with airbrushed genitalia and read, "Does Your Mother Know What Websites You Look At? The Government Does."

(Harvard Crimson, March 3, 2003; March 13, 2003)

(d) Indiana University School of Law: a May, 2003 report on the average test scores of black and white students was placed by law student Scott Dillon in student mailboxes but was removed by an unknown person. Lauren Robel, dean of the law school, sent out an email to students about the theft and how to get the report.

(Chronicle of Higher Education, June 6, 2003)

(e) Michigan State University: student David Powder pled guilty to misdemeanour harassment for posting a “White Caucus” flyer in his dorm, showing a naked pregnant woman and listing the phone numbers of the Black Caucus board members. Powder was arrested by campus police and spent a night in jail. The Lansing ACLU defending Powder’s flier as political parody.

(Detroit Education; Discriminations update)

(f) Montana State University-Northern: former professor Doug Giebel received $26,500 in a settlement of a lawsuit against his former department chair Stephen Sylvester, who was accused of removing posters publicizing Giebel’s 1996 speech on campus.

(SPLC, Dec. 20, 2002)

(g) New York University: A student at New York University tore down a student poster that said "Think big: Bomb Iraq" because the poster "is no less dangerous than a physical assault."

(US News & World Report, Dec. 9, 2002)

(h) Oregon State University: more than 2,600 small wooden crosses were stolen from a pick-up truck of the Oregon State College Republicans before a planned "Cemetery to the Unborn" on campus Jan. 22, 2003. The “Cemetary” was made using 1,000 crosses stored elsewhere.

(http://www.osugop.org, Jan. 23, 2003)

(i) Princeton University: posters were torn down that promoted an event featuring representatives from the Gay Men’s Health Center in New York speaking on "safer sex and healthy relationships." The ads showed same-sex couples hugging and kissing. After Public Safety asked the Facilities staff to remove some anonymous pornographic posters, the posters for the sex talk were also removed due to a miscommunication.

(Nassau Weekly, Oct. 2002)

(j) Rutgers University at New Brunswick (New Jersey): 25 members of the Israel Action Committee Rutgers University and other Jewish groups held a sit-in March 7, 2003 in the Douglass College Center to protest the University's decision to allow pro-Palestinian groups to hang a banner that read, "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free." The Jewish groups asserted that the phrase referred to the destruction of Israel, but members of the Rutgers Association for Middle East Justice, which hung the banner, argued that it referred only to making the Israeli government protect human rights in Palestine and Israel. The center allows any Rutgers organization or department to post a sign in the display case, and does not censor content. Rutgers officials refused to remove the banner until the reserved time for it expired that weekend.

(Daily Targum, March 10, 2003)

(k) St. Cloud State College: Nathan Church, Vice-President for Student Life and Development, apologized for forcing the College Republicans to taken down an Israeli flag at a pro-Israel information booth in the student union. Two Jewish professors expressed offense at the display because the College Republicans had no Jewish members. The College Republicans say that Prof. Rona Karasik, acting chair of the Jewish Faculty Association, knocked one student against the wall because he took her photograph against her will.

(scsu-scholars.blogspot.com, Jan. 5, 2003)

(l) University of California at Irvine: flyers critical of the campus's "Coming Out Day" were torn down by three anonymous students

(Bucknell Counterweight, http://www.campusconservatives.com/updates/000017.html)

(m) University of Chicago: A student had a flier defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti near her dorm room ("Fuck the Israeli pigs, Jewish star = Nazi swastika").

(Chicago Maroon, Nov. 15, 2002)

(n) University of Illinois at Chicago: conservative activist David Horowitz reported that during a visit to the University of Illinois at Chicago, “I wandered over to the Student Union and came upon the sign denouncing me as ‘Racist, Sexist, Anti-Gay.’" According to Horowitz, “I didn't regard this as speech so much as a gesture like kicking me in the groin. It seemed extremely perverse of her to be defending her right to slander me to my face. So then and there -- in front of her and the university official -- I ripped down her sign.”

(Horowitz blog, frontpagemag.com, Nov. 5, 2002)

COMMENT: While Horowitz felt that they were “sliming me and inciting hatred against me, so that students wouldn't listen to what I had to say,” he has no right to try to silence opposition to his ideas.

(o) Yale University: a memorial on campus by Yale Friends of Israel was vandalized, and many of its posters have been torn down or vandalized, as have fliers of Students for Justice in Palestine.

(Yale Daily News, October 25, 2002 http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?aid=20360)

Back to 2002-03 State of Academic Freedom Report

Back to www.collegefreedom.org