 "Photo: Brian Tedder / Collegian")
The day before a judicial hearing determining the future status of the Radical Student Union, the organization held a rally for free speech on the steps of the Student Union.
Standing in front of a banner reading "Whose University? Our University," members of the registered student organization lambasted the University of Massachusetts administration for what it considers suppression of free speech on campus.
"There is no explicit protection of free speech here at UMass-Amherst and this affects every individual student as well as every student group on campus," said Constantinos Savaros, student senator from Orchard Hill and member of the RSU. "What you say here is not guaranteed to be protected and you're all at risk to be disciplined for expressing yourselves."
Savaros criticized University policy as limiting the freedom of speech by giving undue authority to the chancellor for determining what can and cannot be displayed on campus.
"There is no criteria outlined on how to determine what is and is not acceptable and thus the chancellor can make up the criteria as he wishes," Savaros said. "The arbitrary nature of these rules makes free speech non-existent here. The chancellor determines who can say what and where they can say it according to the vague rules that currently exist."
Bill Newman, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) Western Massachusetts office, charged the University with putting a chilling effect on the First Amendment at UMass.
"It's about the right to express yourselves," he said to a crowd of nearly 100 onlookers. "It's not only your right, it's your obligation to make those statements."
The rally arrived on the eve of a judicial hearing that, according to members of the RSU, will likely determine whether the group will lose either its office space or status as an RSO. The group has been charged with failure to comply with an administrator and the theft, misuse or damage of University property for defying a directive to remove a safe-sex brochure - graphically displaying two men engaging in sexual relations - earlier this semester.
"I think a student group that has any type of rally that promotes a positive message is doing a service to the school," said Brad DeFlumeri, president of the UMass Republican Club. "We appreciated what the RSU did today in bringing in a high-ranking member of the American Civil Liberties Union."
Some students, like senior Brian Scannell, remained more ambivalent about the rally and its effect on current state of campus free speech.
"I'm a student here, and I'm not part of the administration and I'm not a part of the Radical Student Union, so for the administration to tell me what I can't see or for the Radical Student Union to tell me what I have to see, it's just two different types of tyranny," said the mathematics and economics major.
Scannell called for both the administration and the Radical Student Union to seek out the opinion of the student body.
"Both the administration and the RSU now need to consult the students and ask them how they feel instead of telling them how they should feel," he said. "The administration tells us how we should feel one way and the RSU tells us how we should feel the other way and nobody actually asks us how we generally feel."
Derrick Perkins can be reached at dperkins@dailycollegian.com.
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