Free Speech Proposal tabled by President Hahs

President Sharron Hahs had approach the four main governing bodies on campus asking for an endorsement of the proposed Northeastern Illinois University Policy and procedure Concerning Demonstrations on campus, Distribution and display of visual communications and solicitation of signatures on campus (DDS.) She has made a decision to table the policy as of Jan. 6 after receiving endorsements from two of the four major governing bodies.

The policy was an attempt to clarify a general policy about these topics that already exists. It is the clarification of current policy; the student conduct code Administrative Memorandum #56.The document was created by the free speech task force and has been refined through the process.

"As things have gotten more muddled and the process has gotten confused I withdrew the document. It's time, everybody cares so deeply about this topic and I do too and the conversations are getting less and less fruitful," said President Hahs. "We are going to stop for awhile and figure out if we should do more with this document or should we do something different. So, I withdrew the document, when the document is getting in the way of the conversation that's not helpful."

President Hahs cited the Sen. Dick Durbin speech on Oct. 9, 2007 as one of the main reasons for the document. Senator Durbin was invited to speak about the DREAM Act and protest ensued stating that Sen. Durbin supported the war. A topic unrelated to the speech. Sen. Durbin came back with, "This is America you are entitled to free speech, but don't rewrite my record."

Sen. Durbin was one of two Senators who voted against the war in Iraq from the start. Protesters were cited Durbin's vote for troop funding as support for the war. "It is important to have free speech but part of the etiquette of free speech is not to drown out others right to free speech," said President Hahs.

"I sent it to the four groups that are shared governance and requested they considered endorsing it SGA Faculty Senate the A&P Council and the Civil Service Council. It is something new and I though it would be a good way to generate conversation on the topic," said President Hahs.

"The SGA already endorsed. The Civil Service council has endorsed it. The other two have not yet," said President Hahs. "It's important that Students use proper channels to protest. [Protest] is used because people don't have other mechanisms for their voice and I am trying to assure that there are many mechanisms to their voice."

Among the policies is a maximum of two times a semester that non-NEIU affiliates can table on campus. This policy would not affect the businesses or military recruiters looking to table. The proposal also lists areas where protests can and cannot take place." It's a university tradition to have a place where everybody goes to make their point," said President Hahs. "Some of the restricted areas are Illinois law. Others are about the Universities goal to make sure that education doesn't get disrupted. It's a mix of the Illinois law and the Universities duty to educate above all."

Adam Goldstein, Attorney Advocate for the Student Press Law Center, attorneys that specialize in first amendments rights, said that placing restricted and non-restricted free speech zones is the use of the "Arsonists excuse." He clarified by stating an arsonist goes through a city and sets four buildings on fire and is caught. In court he says 'everybody is talking about the four buildings I burnt down nobody is talking about the eight I didn't.'

As far as how these policies would effect media organizations such as the Independent and Que Onde Sola, President Hahs said, "This is not their document. The state of Illinois has laws that [Student Media Organizations] will not be restricted in the different parts of the newspapers. These belong to the students and it is in the University policy and Illinois law that these are free agents."

The current policy is referred to as Demonstrations on Campus in the student handbook gives broad guidelines as to where and how demonstrations should be conducted. President Hahs had looked at these guidelines and talked about how this idea of clarifying the guidelines with the DDS came to be."Before I became president in Feb. of 2007 there was a task force called the Free Speech Task Force. The goal of that group is to take all of our existing policy to see if it was clear enough and to see if it should be brought together instead of being in three different places and to see if we should add or subtract anything," said President Hahs.

"I didn't know we had this group working. Then we had the CIA incident fall of 2007. Sen. Durbin came and we had that incident. The task force had never submitted their reports. I found out about this and looked at the report and said, 'this looks fine pending legal review.' The First Amendment is complicated. We sent it to the board of trustee's attorney and he made a few suggestions. We incorporated his suggestions and went back to the task force, because after everyone put in their input it became a long and technical document," said President Hahs.