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University of North Texas Students Eliminate Free Speech Zones
Students at the U of North Texas have protested the creation of "free speech zones" on campus with free speech head stones. They reserved every free speech zone on campus for a week and used them to collect thousands of signatures on a petition to get rid of the free speech zones. The school has agreed to eliminate the zones and consider the United States of America to again be a free speech zone.
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I'm glad those students resisted. I guess they did it in the appropriate way, with a twist of irony to boot. Wish that would work for us too. It is a shame that our own government does not respond to our petitions. We could repeal the Patriot Act, The Military Commissions Act and defeat SR 1959 before it even comes up for a final vote. Maybe we should have to ratify everything they try and slip through. Now there is an idea.
It really gets to me that people of so-called authority make these "rules" without any regard for our Constitution or The Bill of Rights. People have no principles anymore. What has come of this country? Really, what is wrong with these people. I'm starting to wonder if they're even human. Too bad more good people don't have a lust for power. The world would be better with only a few of them assigned to making laws and rules.
We managed to gather over one thousand signatures on out petitions. We felt a great sense of accomplishment when the University Administrators listened to us. Here is the direct link to the NT daily (our school paper) and it's article on this. As you will read it still must go through the Board of Regents for approval. You can follow our groups newest activism action at www.myspace.com/sdsdenton and www.myspace.com/dentonlabor. Thank you again for your support.
Thanks for the support. We actually did this campaign quite easily. There is an interim Dean of Students who was very receptive to the idea; she showed up to our first planning meeting (without us formally inviting her, I guess that she saw our flyers around campus). Besides that, it just took a second planning meeting to decide exactly what the request is, and how to frame some of the wording. Then all it took was 2 days on campus to get petition signatures. In about 24 hours, well over 1,000 people signed the petition which was shortly presented to the Dean. The Student Government Association had a debate over the topic, and I presume that it went positively. The President of the University was also on board with the idea, and it got approved amongst all of the administration on campus. Now a formal policy just needs to be written up by the administration, and the Board of Regeants has to approve of it (whoever they are, they aren't even meeting in the same city as our campus). So technically, it could still be denied, but we'll see shortly.
Thanks for publishing the story! The campaign was organized in a UNT Students Free Speech Coalition and partly by SDS Students for a Democratic Society
As far as I can remember, these free speech zones were actually deemed unconstitutional by the supreme court a few years back. but yay eagles anyways! I'm all for students rising up, hell i'm normally one of them but it seems like this group of students in particular is just not picking the correct things to fight against. these students are thriving on getting arrested (alluding to previous acts of protest by this group of students), they are proud to cause a ruckus which is not the correct way to protest. Protesting is meant to cause thought provoking ideas but not physical actions. I am proud of my fellow students but at the same time ashamed of a lot of their previous actions.
First of all, it seems like you are contradicting yourself. First you say, "Yay Eagles", then you say we are picking the wrong things to fight against.
Free Speech Zones are a very important battle to be won. Our future battles will be conducted much more easily if we are allowed our right to assemble, speak, and petition without restraint. We are also helping out other student organizations, students, faculty, staff and citizens express themselves more freely. Since when has fighting for our rights been unimportant?
Secondly, SDS Denton has only had one action so far (a peace march on 9/11/08) and no one was arrested. It is ridiculous to say that we would think making a ruckus and getting arrested is a good tactic. If you have ever been to any of our meetings, you would know that we are a serious activist organization trying to win real change. I would like to hear what actions you are referring to. I feel like you are misinformed about our organization and/or you might be getting us confused with another organization.
Also, the supreme court ruled that free speech zones are legal and universities are allowed to dictate how, when, and where people can have speech.