Letter from the Lantern Staff to Ohio State. Credit: Lantern File Photo
As student-led demonstrations surge on college campuses across the country, nationwide controversy regarding free speech has sparked.
The discourse largely surrounds the limits on students’ abilities to exercise their First Amendment rights compared to the powers universities possess to enforce campus safety and security — and Ohio State is no exception.
Though the university’s space standards intend to strike a balance between students’ freedom of expression and maintaining a safe space for “academic and administrative pursuits without substantial disruptions,” the enforcement of such standards has garnered confusion among the student body and the broader Columbus community.
In light of the apparent inconsistencies in the university’s handling of various campus demonstrations, The Lantern has sought out answers to several questions surrounding the space standards: Do the standards apply equally to registered and non-registered events? Do certain provisions of the standards carry more weight than others? Does the university’s response grow in scale as more standards violations compound? Does a given demonstration’s content affect the university’s response?
And perhaps most importantly, where can students go to learn about the potential consequences of attending or organizing a demonstration?
The Lantern has posed these and additional related questions to the university multiple times but has yet to receive a clear, on-the-record answer. We believe the Ohio State community not only has a right to know what its members are risking by engaging in on-campus demonstrations and what to expect from the university’s response but would significantly benefit from such clarity.
Context
Potential inconsistencies within the space standards’ enforcement first came to The Lantern’s attention after an April 25 pro-Palestine protest and an Aug. 25 Christian baptism ceremony.
Per prior Lantern reporting, the April 25 protest — which resulted in 36 arrests, 16 of whom were students — first began with an encampment of roughly 350 people on the South Oval, which violated the “Tents and Temporary Structures” section of the university’s space standards — then referred to as “space rules” before they were routinely revised by the university over the summer.
The then-rules also outline that “restricted noise,” or sound that disrupts the university’s function, is not allowed after 10 p.m. any day except Saturday when such noise is allowed up to midnight. As the April 25 protest continued past 10 p.m., the “Use of Sound” provision of the space standards was also violated.
The Aug. 25 Christian baptism ceremony — which saw between 800-1,000 people congregated outside Curl Market — featured Ohio State football players delivering speeches and testimonies via microphones, which were connected to speaker systems that also played music throughout the night.
The space had been reserved until 9:45 p.m. by organizers. Around 9:54 p.m., police officers spoke with an organizer and instructed him to tell attendees to disperse, though no such announcement was heard by Lantern reporters at the event.
Though police were present at the event, no direct police intervention or arrests were reported, and eventually, attendees dispersed at roughly 10:24 p.m.
Seeing as the Aug. 25 baptism ceremony continued past 10 p.m., the space standards’ “Use of Sound” provision was violated.
The Lantern’s contact with the university
The Lantern does not aim to draw a limited comparison or create a false equivalency between these two demonstrations. In fact, we acknowledge the two events are distinctly different, one being a protest and the other being a baptism gathering.
Moreover, according to university spokesperson Ben Johnson, there were “more than 30 demonstrations and other events related to Israel and Palestine” last year, and The Lantern agrees it would be unfair to insinuate that what happened April 25 is typical of campus demonstrations.
But why was it the exception?
If the university’s response to the April 25 protest involved arrests because of the event’s encampment, then the university ought to be transparent about that. Or, if it was because the demonstration violated two distinct provisions of the space standards — as opposed to the baptism ceremony’s violation of only one — then it ought to be transparent about that, too.
In an attempt to gain clarity on these lines of questioning, The Lantern contacted Johnson and other university spokesperson Chris Booker via email Sept. 4 with a list of specific questions pertaining to the space standards.
In addition to those aforementioned in this letter, The Lantern asked questions about how university police determine how many officers to send to an event, why no announcement to disperse was explicitly made from police to attendees on Aug. 25’s event despite multiple warnings from police directly on April 25, how the university determines the consequences event organizers and/or attendees face for violating space standards and more.
In response, Booker said Ohio State “supports the right of everyone to speak out about issues that are important to them and advocate for causes in a way that is lawful” out of a commitment to protecting First Amendment rights on campus.
“Each year university staff, including members of the Office of Student Life and the Department of Public Safety, support hundreds of events across campus to ensure the right to free expression while limiting disruption of the university’s mission and ensuring the safety of our campus community,” Booker said. “Each event is different, and comparing only two events is not an accurate representation of the university’s comprehensive, content-neutral staffing and safety approach. The Department of Public Safety works in conjunction with students and student organizations to determine any necessary and required security arrangements – but final determinations regarding security arrangements are the sole decision of the Department of Public Safety.”
The Lantern met with university President Ted Carter Jr. for an exclusive interview Sept. 12, and took the opportunity to bring up some of our unanswered questions regarding the space rules.
During the interview, The Lantern asked the following question: Does violating the “Tents and Temporary Structures” section of the space standards result in harsher consequences for student activists than violating other sections, such as “Reserving Space for Events” or “Timing and Duration of Events?”
Carter said it’s important to remember that “every event is different.” He later said, “Now just since we’ve started this school year, we’ve already had three events — we had a Christian prayer vigil, a Jewish prayer vigil and a Muslim prayer vigil, all without incident.”
“The events that you refer back to on April 25, sadly, the only reason those ended up the way they were is because there was a planned attempt and a clear statement to violate our campus space rules,” Carter said. “There were multiple warnings all the way through the night so that none of those events had to end the way they did, and it was clear at some point there was a group of people there that were not gonna leave and wanted to have the encampment. And I really wish that hadn’t ended the way it did, I would’ve preferred it not. But at the end of the day, as we saw in many campuses across the country, once those encampments started and grew, there was no way to ensure the safety of those people that were there, and I did not want to see that happen.”
Carter also said violations of multiple, distinct provisions of the space standards within an event do “not necessarily” compound to warrant a harsher response.
Carter’s responses seem to indicate that some sections of the space standards are, in fact, enforced more heavily than others — in this instance, the “Tents and Temporary Structures” provision. However, since that was never explicitly stated, The Lantern decided to follow up with the university once more.
The Lantern sent another email Wednesday to give the university an additional opportunity to provide concrete answers to the specific, enumerated questions we had originally sent Sept. 4. Unfortunately, no such responses were provided.
“The long-standing university space standards are enforced uniformly, content neutral and publicly available online,” Booker said in an email Thursday. “Additionally, they have been reviewed every four years since 2016, and we worked over the summer with input from faculty, staff and students to ensure the standards are clear.”
Final remarks
We understand the university has a tricky line to toe when it comes to balancing free speech rights and the safety of the campus area. In fact, this letter does not intend to condemn the university for its responses to either of these demonstrations, or any of the countless others that have taken place in recent times.
Rather, what we see is an issue of transparency. We fail to see what the university loses by answering specific questions pertaining to the space standards and their enforcement. On the contrary, we believe the campus community would be significantly safer if all individuals knew exactly how these space standards function.
In other words, perhaps there would be fewer violations of the standards if the community knew exactly how they worked.
We believe the best way for the university to demonstrate that it values both content-neutral free speech and campus safety is by directly answering The Lantern’s questions, thereby shedding light on precisely how students and faculty can exercise their First Amendment rights in a safe and protected manner.
On behalf of The Lantern,
Emma Wozniak
Editor-in-Chief
