An administrator at the University of Illinois Chicago ordered the school’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter to take down its “No More Che Day” display yesterday afternoon, claiming that the public sidewalk is not actually public property, and that he considers the sidewalk to be an “indoor location.”
WATCH: @thisisuic administrator SHUTS DOWN "NoMoreCheDisplay" put up by students and threatens disciplinary action pic.twitter.com/nC7s65Us52
— YAF (@yaf) October 11, 2022
“Indoor it’s not [public property]. It’s not. It’s indoor the circle, it’s not just open to anybody,” Vance Pierce, associate director of UIC’s Center for Student involvement, told YAF members while ordering them to pack up their demonstration and leave.
Despite the fact that the display was set up outdoors on a sidewalk of the state-run university, Pierce insisted that the sidewalk is private property, and therefore subject to restrictions that would prohibit the YAF chapter from passing out literature.
“There’s a difference between public property and state property,” the ignorant administrator continued. “Public property is anybody can set up outside on the sidewalk, there’s no issue. But inside, we do have some policies that we’re trying to share with you.”
Again, it’s unclear why Pierce considers the particular location on the sidewalk where the YAFers were set up to be “indoors.”
When the YAF student activists asked the administrator to cite the supposed policy he was enforcing, Pierce threatened to file a disciplinary report with the dean’s office for “refusal to follow university directives.” He proceeded to take down the students’ names and student identification numbers.
“It’s scary that we may face disciplinary action simply because we passed out literature critical of a communist murderer and terrorist,” Jerwyn Castillo, chairman of Young Americans for Freedom at UIC, told YAF.
Neither Pierce nor the university’s communications department immediately responded to a request for comment.
For over a decade, Young America’s Foundation has sponsored the “No More Che Day” activism project on the anniversary of the death of Che Guevara in order to inform students on campuses across the country about the atrocities he committed. The communist revolutionary, who has been hailed by some on the Left as a “hero,” was a brutal murderer. He was responsible for the executions of thousands of men, women, and children who were deemed to be disloyal to the regime.
It’s disgraceful that this sort of situation is happening at a public university in the United States of America. Whatever happens next, YAF is committed to supporting Jerwyn and his fellow freedom fighters at UIC.
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