By JOHN CONNORS
Staff Writer
 

On Wednesday evening members of the GLBA, our fellow students (myself included) and friends gathered to decorate and cover the Bates quad with chalk markings, posters and cloth triangles supporting gay freedom and the gay community.

The intention behind these images was one of community, learning, honesty and most importantly, love. They represented the voice of a minority group often times silenced and ignored by their mainstream heterosexual brothers and sisters. Important for the message they carried, and as evidence of the gay community's existence, by 5 a.m. Thursday morning (barely six hours after having been put up), they had all been removed. All of them.

Why? There are many answers.

Answer one: I have heard (but not confirmed) that the "chalking" of supportive slogans, sayings, etc. for the gay community (or any group) is in violation of an "oral" Bates policy that prohibits "graffiti." As such, the chalkings were removed last night since they constitute graffiti.

I have also heard that the chalkings that have since been made to replace the ones removed Wednesday night are also in danger of being removed under that same policy. I interpret this policy as one that is aimed at maintaining the image of Bates College as a "clean" and pretty place.

Answer two: Some of the images created Wednesday night were considered "offensive" and were therefore unacceptable for display on the quad. I interpret this to mean that you cannot express yourself if it offends another person.

Answer three: Last night, as a result of an (I believe) honest miscommunication, the administration, again in its efforts to maintain Bates's image and prevent offensive images, removed them, not knowing that the quad had been blue-slipped for that very purpose. In this answer, one assumes that the College was trying to enforce the policy of blue slipping, and thereby preventing the abuse of college policy.

Answer four: We live within a private institution. As such, our First Amendment rights are subject to the interpretation and manipulation (within certain broad limits) of that institution.

I find none of these reasons acceptable for the removal of materials from the quad Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

The first answer (the unconfirmed oral Bates policy on graffiti) is irresponsible and an abuse of college powers.

If this vague oral policy does in fact exist, and is being used to silence expression on this campus, then Bates is a) not acting within the interests of a institution of higher education (i.e. fostering a community of open discussion), and b) is not protecting the exercise of freedom of expression.

Bates has a responsibility to make reasonable policy designed to protect its legitimate interests as an institution of higher education and the individual exercise of freedom of expression.

The second answer (offensive images and slogans) is difficult to refute, yet nevertheless unacceptable. The price of freedom of speech is putting up with all the voices out there -- even the ones you deem offensive.

Offensiveness, although uncomfortable, and some would claim oppressive, is the price we pay for living in this nation with these freedoms. Abridging the First Amendment in the name of preventing offensiveness is unconstitutional and a destruction of the pluralistic forum for discussion and growth.

The third answer (the issue of upholding the blue-slipping policy) is also an unacceptable reason for the removal of materials from the campus. The issue is not whether or not the events and images were or were not blue-slipped (although they were); the issue is why an expression of freedom has to be blue-slipped at all.

The fourth answer (Bates as a private institution may interpret our First Amendment rights) is also unacceptable. Bates is not above the freedom of expression simply due to the fact that it is a private institution. And if Bates claims to be, then Bates is hypocritical.

Included in a memorandum from the Hate Crimes/Bias Incident Committee dated September 25, 1997, concerning a connected issue was this excerpt: "We deplore the actions of any individual or individual to target any group on campus, to infringe upon that group's first Amendment right to free speech, to damage their property, to devalue their efforts to offer support to others, to frighten and alarm members of the community who belong to any marginalized group."

The real issue here is whether or not we, as a campus, will allow a minority group's actions (in this case the Bates gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender community) to be quashed under unreasonable positions and rhetoric.

We live in a nation where your right to speak out is constitutional law. We live in an institution that claims to be one of higher education, and that shapes discourse and action. We live in an educational environment where discussion is imperative to learning. We live in an environment supposedly friendly to minority positions such as these. And yet our right to free speech is not a given, even here.