Two Eastern Kentucky University students who were ordered by campus police to leave the plaza in front of the Keene Johnson Building Sept. 28 during a visit by U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Sixth District, were back on Tuesday.
This time they were joined at points by as many as 20 supporters to protest what university administrators now say was a misunderstanding of a “free-speech policy” adopted this summer by the board of regents.
The rally broke up around midday when a steady drizzle of rain fell on campus.
As Chandler arrived Sept. 28 for a 9 a.m. briefing on the EKU biofuels project, for which he had obtained more than $4 million in “earmarked” federal funds, two students sat on a stone bench next to the Daniel Boone statue in front of Keen Johnson holding a sign that read, “Ben Can’t Win 2010.”
When the congressman left more than an hour later, the students had moved across University Drive to the campus ravine, where they were joined by two others. They held a sign that read, “My Old Kentucky Town Hall?”
The students said they were protesting Chandler’s refusal to schedule town-hall style meetings in his district during the late summer congressional recess.
Asked about the move, Stuart Warren of Harrodsburg said they had been told by EKU Police Chief Mark Merriman they would have to register with the university’s Student Life Office and then move to a designated “free-speech zone.”
At the student life office, Warren said he and fellow student Jordan Yurt of Lexington were told they “would be arrested” if they returned to the plaza in front of Keen Johnson.
“We also were told we should have registered 72 hours in advance,” Warren said.
The Student Life staff did not inquire if he and Yurt were students, Warren said.
“They should have recognized us as students,” he said. “We both had textbooks in backpacks, and I had been in (that office) several times to schedule meetings.”
Rather than suffer the life-long stigma of an arrest record, Warren said he and Yurt decided to stand in the ravine lawn with their toes only inches from the University Drive sidewalk, where they were within sight of a uniformed campus police officer stationed less than 200 feet away.
They were joined in the ravine by students Jacob and Josh Hamm of Richmond.
University spokesman Marc Whitt disputed the students account of their conversation with Student Life personnel and denies they were threatened with arrest. He said the Sept. 28 incident was the result of a “misunderstanding.”
The policy requires only individuals and groups from off campus to register in advance — five days. They may then stage outdoor protests and rallies only in the ravine and in the Powell Building Plaza, according to a copy of the policy provide by Whitt.
Warren and other students said they did not ask for permission to stage Tuesday’s rally, but they had met with EKU President Doug Whitlock to seek clarification of campus free-speech rights.
Asked for Whitlock’s version of his meeting with the students, Whitt provided a link to an Internet blog written by EKU faculty member Dr. Richard Day that reported the president’s statement Monday to the faculty senate.
The policy placed restrictions only on off-campus entities, the president assured the faculty, and the university would not interfere with the student’s free-speech rally.
According to Day, “Whitlock said the ‘free exchange of ideas’ is crucial to the university environment, and it is ,healthy for our students to be engaged' in politics.”
Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 624-6622.
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Eastern Kentucky University students, from left, Stuart Warren, a senior from Harrodsburg, senior Jacob Hamm of Richmond and junior Jordan Yurt of Lexington, demonstrate Tuesday morning outside the Keene Johnson Building for free speech on campus. The students said they were ordered to leave the same spot Sept. 28 as U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, D-6th District, visited campus.
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