College of the Sequoias Young Americans for Freedom chalked our campus with common sense principles, scripture, and conservative ideas. This simple act of free speech on most campuses has sparked a police officer to accuse us of vandalism, our faculty advisor to quit, the student senate to threaten to de-recognize our chapter, and (we suspect) faculty to cancel class because we promoted conservatism.
Here is what happened.
College of the Sequoias severely restricts our ability to place flyers around campus to promote our upcoming speaking event with Vince Ellison. Therefore, we took to chalking the campus.
Once we confirmed with the school that there was no policy against chalking, our YAFers decorated the Quad with our conservative message, including, “stop mutilating trans children,” “God Bless America,” “see what is beyond the victim card,” event details, and more.
While we were chalking a police officer confronted the chapter and accused us of vandalism. After standing up for our rights, the visibly frustrated officer let us be.
Early in the morning, the school sent out a crew to erase our chalk. A representative of the school then sent me an email describing our expression of speech as “graffiti” and likening it to toilet-papering a house. In the same email, our chapter was threatened with disciplinary action by the Administration, who blamed us for wasting the school’s resources to erase the chalk. The school then sent another email confirming there was no policy against sidewalk chalk.
We were not about to let our free speech rights be trampled, so we fought back as any YAF chapter should! We highlighted the absurdity of blaming us for the usage of resources to violate our First Amendment rights. We also asked the school what would happen if we went chalking again.
It was at this point our club advisor (a conservative professor) resigned and wished to no longer be affiliated with YAF. She would later send an email apologizing for our “disrespectful and defiant actions towards the college.”
The dean of student services frantically called my personal cell phone twice. He then sent an email confirming there is no policy against chalk but that our behavior was “not permissible” and that our chapter and the individual members of our group would face discipline if we chalked again.
We now face discipline if we try to exercise our rights again, and the school has put up roadblocks to us hosting our Vince Ellison event. To fight back, we have partnered with Bill Becker at the law firm Freedom X to demand an explanation for the school’s threats.
The student senate has scheduled a meeting this Tuesday regarding YAF and invited leftist activists to vent their frustration of course, YAF has not been asked to participate. We plan to be there regardless to capture their antics.
Yet again, higher education has reinforced that conservative students are treated as second-class students. At no point has any administrator, dean, nor the tyrants in training leading the student senate expressed concern for our rights to speak on campus, nor have they told the snowflake leftists that different views should be allowed to be heard at our school.
