Some students have raised concerns about the chalking policy almost two months into the ban. Credit: Max Garrison | Lantern File Photo
It’s been almost two months since Ohio State banned sidewalk chalking, and some students are raising concerns that the new policy is curtailing their rights to free speech.
The ban was introduced and supported by the administration as an effort to reduce the burden of evaluating and cleaning sidewalks, per prior Lantern reporting. Students and legal experts argue the ban removes a significant outlet for expression while setting a disturbing precedent for free speech on campus.
Zen Bowers, a second-year in ecological engineering, said the ban hinders students’ ability to express themselves and could open the door to other bans.
“What if we start taking other things away?” Bowers said. “Then it escalates more and more, just taking the whole [First Amendment] right away in general?”
Connor Brayton, a seventh-year in classics, English and anthropology, said he agreed with the free speech concerns, adding that chalking was a unique form of expression not easily replaced.
“There was something particularly artistic about it,” Brayton said. “It aligns with this expressiveness that we’re supposed to have on a university campus, where you’re engaging with different ideas and different conversations [to] all these different people.”
University President Walter “Ted” Carter Jr. told USA Today the issue had to do with the messages themselves.
“It would sit there on the sidewalk for hours, almost looking like we were endorsing it,” Carter said in the interview. “That became a serious administrative burden, and one that did not reflect what I believe was the right thing for the university.”
The administrative conflict is a constitutionally sound reason to implement the ban, Dan Kobil, a Capital University constitutional law professor said.
“If there was some important reason that appeared that showed why they are banning the speech because they needed to protect property, it was costing too much to clean or something like that, then OSU would be perfectly fine constitutionally with the ban,” Kobil said.
However, if the messages themselves were the main issue, the ban becomes less constitutionally sound, Kobil said.
“If, on the other hand, they’re banning all expression because they didn’t like one particular message, then that is somewhat more problematic,” Kobil said.
Kobil said he’s concerned the policy is banning an inexpensive, time-honored method of communication between students and recommends students concerned about the ban to go to the administration to express their grievances.
“Explain why other methods of speech, like social media, are not adequate substitutes,” Kobil said. “Try to persuade the administration to return to the time-honored tradition that they have always enjoyed.”
