NEWS

Iowa students fight for right to chalk

Jeff Charis-Carlson
jcharisc@press-citizen.com

When members of Students for Life drew hearts on a walkway at the University of Iowa last week, they kicked off the latest skirmish in a new frontier of free-speech controversies on college campuses nationwide: a battle over chalk art.

The group’s intention, according to a post on its public Facebook site, was "to give passersby a visual representation of the number of lives snuffed out by abortion each day in the U.S."

But the messages were power-washed away after complaints to university officials, raising questions about why those messages were removed but pronouncements by other groups were left untouched. Now, UI officials are re-evaluating the university’s 6-year-old chalking policy.

National campaigns featuring chalk messages have sprouted at dozens of campuses across the country, primarily led by supporters of businessman Donald Trump and other Republican presidential hopefuls. The campaigns have prompted debates that pit champions of the right to free speech versus those who contend campuses should be free of messages they consider offensive or even threatening.

The efforts , often shared on social media with #TheChalkening, began as a response to demonstrations and protests in March at Emory University in Atlanta in which students — many of them from underrepresented groups — complained of the chalked messages in support of Trump.

The protesters at Emory reportedly said the chalkings made them feel unsafe on campus. Most of the messages were limited only to “Trump” or “Trump 2016," although some referenced Trump's views on immigration and other issues.

Chalked messages from the organization Students for Life at the University of Iowa line the T. Anne Cleary walkway on Monday,  before being washed away by Tuesday's rain. UI officials removed similar chalked messages the week before, saying that they violated UI policy. Officials now say that the policy is ambiguous and will be revised.

James Wagner, Emory’s president, sent a campuswide email after the protest saying he agreed the messages were meant to “intimidate rather than merely to advocate for a particular candidate," according to various national reports.

The email has become a target of criticism and concern from those in higher education who worry universities are becoming overprotective of students as they try to become more welcoming and inclusive.

"Seeing a word you disagree with does not make one unsafe," said Ari Cohn, an attorney for the national organization Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. "It might be offensive. It might even make you feel judged. But the First Amendment protects judgmental speech."

Other administrators are using #TheChalkening as a teaching moment to remind students that as they exercise their freedom of speech they should do so in a manner consistent with their institution's principles and values.

'Debate with civility'

At Drake University, officials sent a campuswide message Monday urging students not to "betray the components of civil discourse, mutual respect, and goodwill" as they engaged in a political debate via sidewalk chalking across campus.

The campuswide email wasn't in response to specific local issues, said Jarad Bernstein, Drake's director of public relations. But the message was offered in response to some references to #TheChalkening on campus.

R. Sentwali Bakari, Drake's dean of students, said there haven't been any reports so far of violations of the university's policies. He also said it's hard to imagine a case in which the university would call for removing any of the chalked political messages.

"We don't have a history of doing that," Bakari said.

Iowa State University officials report that facility personnel have responded about two dozen times to remove chalk messages from public spaces this semester.

Bob Currie, ISU's director of facilities services, advises would-be chalkers at the Ames school  to "be respectful of areas where event activity occurs frequently," "to avoid conflicting messages" and to not ruin the aesthetic experience for visitors.

"Our visitors expect to find the most beautiful campus that ISU is known for," Currie said via email.

University of Northern Iowa officials say they have received a handful of allegations this semester of people tampering with chalking on the Cedar Falls campus. Officials were unable to determine who was a fault, however, so no action has been taken.

UNI's chalking policy focuses on ensuring that chalking does not adversely affect the campus grounds and the messages are consistent with the law and university policy.

Viewpoint-neutral

The situation is a little different at the University of Iowa where officials have implemented a widespread ban on chalking on campus, with targeted exceptions for the three sidewalks along the perimeter of Hubbard Park and T. Anne Cleary Walkway.

Such bans are allowable at public institutions "as long as they abide by that in a viewpoint-neutral way," attorney Cohn said.

UI officials, however, are reevaluating the institution's policy on chalking after a pro-life student organization raised questions about why UI employees power-washed away their colorful sidewalk messages while leaving the chalked pronouncements of other groups untouched.

The problem at UI started last week after the organization Students for Life chalked 3,200 hearts on the walkway. Sarah McCreary, a UI senior and president of Students for Life, said the members of the organization carefully crafted messages to be positive and uplifting.

UI officials received complaints about the messages, and on April 12 UI facilities employees removed the chalk from the walkway.

This file photo from April shows chalked messages from the organization University of Iowa Students for Life. The university recently implemented a new policy on what student groups are allowed to chalk on certain sidewalks on campus.

The messages were removed because they did not comply with a policy that requires chalked messages to publicize upcoming public events hosted by a recognized student organization, said Bill Nelson, director of the Iowa Memorial Union and the UI Center for Student Involvement and Leadership.

"We understand the policy is not perfectly clear to everyone," Nelson said via email. "Now that the Students for Life have brought the ambiguity in the policy language requiring that the chalking publicize an upcoming organization event to our attention, it is being revised."

The university's policy also allows UI employees to remove messages that include obscenities, profanity, "any form of hate speech" or "any message threatening individuals or groups of people to incite physical or psychological harm."

Chalked messages from the organization Students for Life at the University of Iowa line the T. Anne Cleary walkway on Monday before being washed away by Tuesday's rain. UI officials removed similar chalked messages the week before, saying that they violated UI policy. Officials now say that the policy is ambiguous and will be revised.

McCreary said she was aware of certain parts of the policy, but not that chalking could only be done for specific, upcoming events. She also was confused why UI officials did not remove other chalkings on the walkway she said were equally in violation of the policy.

Nelson did not specify how UI's policy is being revised, but he stressed that UI is "strongly committed to freedom of expression" and said the university welcomes students using sidewalks to express that freedom — as long as they adhere to the policies UI has in place for its shared spaces.

"Enforcement of the policy is complaint driven, and we do not patrol the grounds examining chalked messages," Nelson said. "When a concern is brought to our attention, we address it according to the policy terms. We apply that same approach to all chalkings, regardless of which group produced the chalking."

Under UI policy, the costs associated with removal will be charged to the student organization’s account.

McCreary said her group and its attorney are working with the university to find a satisfactory resolution to the ambiguity in the policy.

McCreary also pointed to an April 14 post on the website for Students for Life of America, which includes screenshots of social media conversations from unnamed members of the UI community who viewed the chalked messages as violent, stigmatizing and creating a hostile environment on campus. The conversations directed people to contact UI officials to have the messages removed.

UI Students for Life then re-chalked the sidewalks to include information about an upcoming event for the organization, and the messages were not removed by facilities employees. Some of the chalking was erased or otherwise defaced over the next few days.

Chalked messages from the organization Students for Life at the University of Iowa line the T. Anne Cleary walkway on Monday before being washed away by Tuesday's rain. UI officials removed similar chalked messages the week before, saying that they violated UI policy. Officials now say that the policy is ambiguous and will be revised.

The re-chalked messages included statements such as "life is beautiful," "life is precious," "every life deserves a lifetime," "fingerprints @ 10 weeks," and "we are the pro-life generation." Next to each was the date and time for two of the organization's upcoming events in the Iowa Memorial Union and Burge Residence Hall.

UI’s policy on chalking, Nelson said, started as an initiative of UI Student Government. The only modification made since the 2010-11 school year came after the 2013-2014 academic year, when complaints about chalking were changed from being directed to the Division of Student Life to the Center for Student Involvement and Leadership.

Tim Hagle, a UI professor of political science, agreed that the university was within its rights to impose limits on chalking. But he added that, in this case, "it seems it was clear here that there was a concerted effort organized to have the messages removed."

Hagle also challenged the notion that the messages offered by the Students for Life could be, by themselves, viewed as creating an unsafe environment for anyone on campus.

"This notion of something being 'unsafe' is getting blown out of proportion, especially when it's gotten to the point you cannot even express a contrary opinion with people saying it's 'unsafe," Hagle said. "And when people go to administrators to say something is 'unsafe,' it's usually hard for (administrators) to say, 'No, you're wrong. It isn't unsafe.' "

Concerns about UI's chalking policies stifling student expression were raised in 2014, after a large group of students chalked "Black Lives Matter" and similar statements on the UI Pentacrest. The chalking was in response to a visiting art professor's unauthorized display of a Ku Klux Klan effigy sculpture on the same spot the day before.

UI officials said at the time that the sculpture and the chalked messages were removed for violating UI policy, not in response to the content.

Reach Jeff Charis-Carlson at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 319-887-5435. Follow him on Twitter at @jeffcharis.

Chalked messages from the organization Students for Life at the University of Iowa line the T. Anne Cleary walkway on Monday before being washed away by Tuesday's rain. UI officials removed similar chalked messages the week before, saying that they violated UI policy. Officials now say that the policy is ambiguous and will be revised.