U. of Texas Ends Fight Over Dorm-Room Obama Signs

Dorm-Room Signs

AUSTIN, Texas - Facing a free-speech uproar, the University of Texas backed down Thursday from punishing two students who refused to remove political signs from their dormitory window.

Connor Kincaid and his cousin and roommate, Blake Kincaid, said they were barred from registering for spring classes after refusing Wednesday to take down their signs supporting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

"Effective immediately, I am suspending the prohibition on signs in individual students' residence hall room windows and any sanctions related to its enforcement," UT President Bill Powers said in a written statement.

A very wise choice. If you wonder if young people are becoming more engaged in politics this is a heart-warming story. Yes, there were McCain signs as well so students were standing up for their own freedom of speech.

The crackdown sparked an outcry among students, and university Democrats and Republicans worked together to fight rules they said were unconstitutional. They had encouraged students across campus to put signs in their dorm windows as a form of protest.

This could have gone ugly early if the university had not backed down.

[edit on 9-10-2008 by DancedWithWolves]

I think it goes much deeper than that.

The university backed down not because things would have gotten ugly.

But because no matter if the student body is D or R, both pay good money to attend that institution, and the institution would rather let freedom ring and tuitions get paid than to risk loosing both.

Cheers!!!!

I want to applaud these students for holding onto their Freedom of Speech through their noble course. Freedom of Speech is about more than our right to be heard. Freedom of Speech is about our right to speak with others in open communication. Freedom of Speech is the freedom to say how we feel, share thoughts, speak and hear open discourse on any issue, and add ideas, answers and options to help shape our futures. These students have a need to express themselves and that need is provided for and guaranteed.

This signage restriction and problem of not allowing you to express yourself politically and even on important issues, is widespread and exists well beyond the campuses. The covenants and restrictions of many neighborhood housing developments standing today, restrict signage. These are the neighborhoods where a great deal of middle, low-middle and low-income families live. Most people subscribed to the belief that in a polite society, we didn't want to get into a "war of words" with signage on our lawns.

So just to wax philosophically for a moment.

If all of us could take a few steps back from the problems in our economies and our world today, we should take a moment to honor that everyday someone somewhere is preserving our right to speech. It behooves us to speak with one another on the matters facing us in our time.

Where we are globally is where we will be in our history, our present and our future. Everyday we have, do and will face the same question. Who do we, the human race, want to be? Today is about more than just us as individuals. We are faced with no less than the legacy of the human species to our children and their children. Everyday we write a new page in our own history book which college students will be studying 900 and, hopefully, 10,000 years from today. What do we want them to read? Who are we - Today?

Someday they will find the records of this time buried beneath the foundations of future generations who will have built upon our ruins. What will these people of our future speak of us? What thesis will be written? Will they say, these people came together to create new promise lands upon the old? Will they say, these societies sold future labor on the backs of their children and their children's children to pay off far-reaching and encompassing debt? Debt that was both economic and human. Many innocent's lives have been sacrificed on the offenses of old if one takes a moment to reflect upon the cause.

Thank you students at University of Texas. That was good. Very good.
Thank you to the Administration for doing the right thing.

Be well and do good things.
Peace


[edit on 10-10-2008 by DancedWithWolves]